The federal lawsuit accuses Times Publishing of failing to pay in full for several years to a trust controlled by the late Widow, the company’s former owner, Nelson Pointer.
A complaint filed last week with Virginia on behalf of the trust in the name of Marion K. Pointer seeks interest in addition to more than $7 million.
Company spokesman Morgan Whiteley issued a statement Tuesday.
“Mrs. Pointer’s trust has received about $29 million since her lifetime,” the statement read. “This legal action is unfortunate and we disagree with the alleged liability. We want to resolve this issue in a friendly way.”
Marion Pointer passed away in 2024 at the age of 97. It is unclear who will now benefit from the trust.
The plaintiff in the suit is Mark F. Heyson, a counsel for Forkier County, Virginia, and is listed as a trustee. Marion Pointer lived in Forkier County when she died.
Craig C. Reilly, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the trust, declined to comment when contacted by phone Tuesday.
The Pointer family owned and ran the cents of that time. Petersburg Times Newspaper since the early 20th century. Respected newspaper reporter Nelson Pointer passed away in 1978 at the Modern Media Institute, a journalism training school renamed the Pointer Institute in 1978, leaving most of his company’s stock.
In 1990, Texas businessman Robert Bass attempted what he called the hostile takeover of the era. To drive away the efforts, the company created a charitable trust to benefit Marion Pointer. The Times agreed to pay a trust of about $1 million a year.
This is the second time Pointer Trust has sued Times Publishing. The 2018 case filed similar allegations, claiming that the Times owed $7.8 million to the Trust. The company has stopped paying due to a sharp rise in newspaper article prices caused by tariffs on Canadian imports. The case was resolved a few weeks later.
The new lawsuit was born from the beginning. The complaint states that the Times and its holding company entered into a leniency agreement in 2018, where they agreed to pay the trust monthly. The Times made the required monthly payments by March 1, 2020, according to the lawsuit. Then, on April 1, the company failed to pay $60,000, the complaint stated, and failed to pay the amount needed for each month that follows.
Since July 2020, the complaint says the Times has made partial payments that are not in compliance with the agreement. As a result, the lawsuit claims that the company is the default. Under the terms of the contract, all outstanding items were immediately due, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit seeks a total of $7,099,384 with interest at an interest rate of 1.42%.
Times Publishing Co. produces the Tampa Bay Times, Florida Trends, and Tampa Bay newspapers. The company is owned by the non-profit Poynter Institute.
