Acquitted of murder, dealer wants his stores back

After being convicted of murdering his wife, Calvin Harris lost his dealerships. Four trials and 15 years later, he has been acquitted of the charges. Now he wants his stores back.

Harris, 55, is suing his former partner, Joseph Reagan, 53. Harris and Reagan owned Royal Chevrolet and Royal Nissan, which also sold Subaru vehicles, in Cortland, N.Y., about 25 miles south of Syracuse.

In a lawsuit filed Oct. 24 in the Supreme Court of New York, County of Cortland, Harris alleges Reagan violated a shareholder's agreement and fraudulently gained full ownership of the business after a jury convicted Harris of killing his estranged wife.

But in a fourth trial, a judge acquitted Harris this May. Now Harris wants his 45 percent ownership stake back and the right to enter and run the business, according to court documents. Alternatively, he'll take a minimum of $12.5 million in damages from Reagan.

Reagan's lawyer, Dale Worrall, said Harris won't succeed.

"It appears that Mr. Harris may be seeking the same relief that he already sought in a previous complaint" filed in a different court in 2014, wrote Worrall, a partner at Harris Beach law firm in Pittsford, N.Y., in an email to Automotive News.

That complaint was dismissed and Harris did not appeal, Worrall wrote. 

"We fully expect that Mr. Harris's most recent complaint, like his previous complaint, will be dismissed in its entirety," he wrote.

Harris' lawyer declined comment on the lawsuit on behalf of his client.

Reagan and Harris' partnership was born of their friendship, which started when they were both in college. In 1986, Reagan began working for the Harris family's existing dealerships, the lawsuit said.

The Harris family bought Royal Chevrolet in 1989. A year later, they bought Royal Nissan. Reagan, who held a management position in the stores, was given a 10 percent stake. Harris and his brother, Kevin Harris, owned the other 90 percent. Those two dealerships are now the center of the legal dispute.

Sept. 11, 2001, altered the course of Harris' life.

On a day when the nation was reeling from the terrorist attacks, Harris' estranged wife, Michele Harris, went missing. Her empty minivan was found the next morning at the end of the long driveway of their secluded home in upstate New York. The keys were still in the ignition.

Neither Michele's body nor a weapon was ever found, but prosecutors argued Harris killed his wife, then 35, when she came home the previous night. The two were going through a contentious divorce, but shared the home where their four young children lived.

In September 2005, Harris was charged with murdering Michele.

"Although [Harris] has always denied, and still denies, any involvement in the alleged death of his spouse," he knew that if a jury convicted him, the manufacturers could terminate the franchises, the latest lawsuit states.

To protect his interest, Harris' lawyer drafted a series of agreements. The first allowed Reagan to buy out Kevin Harris' shares, giving Reagan 55 percent ownership of the two stores.

Calvin Harris was left with 45 percent, the lawsuit says.

Another agreement provided for "certain additional transfers" of ownership depending on Harris' criminal case outcome. If he was convicted and used up "all available appeals," Harris would transfer his 45 percent stake to a trust for his children, and then the trust would transfer the shares to Reagan, court documents say.

Reagan's legal claim for acquiring Harris' shares directly was a provision that stated: "Upon the death of Calvin Harris, or alternatively in the event that Calvin is convicted" of the murder, Reagan would buy the shares and real estate for $3.6 million including 6.58 percent interest for 20 years, the lawsuit says.

Reagan has stated that monthly payments he allegedly made to Harris over "the last several years" were in accordance to the stock transfer clause, the lawsuit says.

But Harris' lawsuit points to a footnote, saying payments shall begin 30 days after Harris is "incarcerated notwithstanding pending appeals."

It adds that if an appeal yields a not-guilty verdict, "payments made to Calvin shall be deemed as salary, the note will be marked "paid in full' and the shares will be retransferred to Calvin subject to manufacturer approval."

Harris was first convicted of murder in June 2007. At that time, Harris, who was incarcerated and "in a state of shock," complied with his lawyer's request to "execute blank stock powers." Harris believed those blank stock powers would be held in escrow pending the exhaustion of all appeals, the lawsuit says.

In November 2007, his conviction was overturned. He returned to running the dealerships with no complaint from Reagan, the lawsuit says. But in July 2009, Harris was retried for murder and again convicted. In October 2012, that conviction also was overturned.

This time, when Harris returned to the dealerships, Reagan reacted with "hostility" and told Harris to leave the premises immediately because Harris no longer had any ownership in the dealerships, the lawsuit read.

The lawsuit alleged that sometime between Harris' first conviction and the conclusion of his second trial, "someone had fraudulently filled in the blank stock powers" that Harris had executed while in prison, allowing Reagan to obtain Harris' stake.

Harris first sued to get his shares back in October 2014, before he was tried a third time for murder. The May 2015 trial resulted in a hung jury.

In December 2015, his civil suit against Reagan was dismissed, in part because it had been filed too long after the fact.

But in a fourth murder trial this past May, a judge found Harris not guilty of killing his wife. That prompted the latest lawsuit, which contends that Harris' "final acquittal entitles [him] to the return of his shares."