Some more information has come trickling in about the Hill settlement. Still no one involved will say what the final figure was, but I’m now thinking it’s less than the $125 million I originally guessed. Much less. Just guesswork. So take that for what it’s worth.
There’s another question about this whole clustercuss that has yet to be answered: will the DA’s office go after Al Hill III and his wife, Erin, for shenanigans related to the house in which they live? I know that folks from the DA’s office have interviewed relatives about the matter, which breaks down like this: in 2004, the Hills sold 80 percent of their Bordeaux Avenue home to a Hunt family trust for $3,100,000, according to court filings. But then, in April 2009, the Hills took out a $500,000 home equity loan on the house at 6.5 percent — without letting the Hunt trust (meaning Hill’s father, Al Hill Jr.) know about it. The loan, made by OmniAmerican Bank, was secured by the entirety of the property. I’ve got a copy of the loan application. On it, the husband and wife indicate they own the house. All of it. Not to put too fine a point on it, then, but Erin and Al Hill took out a loan against a house they didn’t (really) own.
I asked Jamille Bradfield, spokeswoman for the DA, whether her office was pursuing a case against the Hills. She said, “I can neither confirm nor deny whether the District Attorney’s Office is pursuing a case against these individuals.” Sounds like a maybe.
