Court-Appointed Receiver Quits AmeriStop

COLD SPRING, Ky. -- The AmeriStop chain of convenience stores, totaling nearly 140 locations in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, will get a new court-appointed receiver to handle the company's operations, now that Leonard Z. Eppel, the previously appointed receiver and president of Financial Resource Associates, stepped down from the position earlier this week, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported.

Eppel told the newspaper he quit after it "became apparent" lenders involved in the case did not want to work with him. "I don't think it had anything to do with us. I think they simply wanted to control the process," he told the Enquirer.

Richard Nelson of the Cincinnati-based law firm, Cohen, Todd, Kite & Stanford, was appointed to the position to replace Eppel, according to the report.

CSNews Online originally reported on Sept. 12 that Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge William Mallory appointed a third-party receiver to handle AmeriStop’s affairs, after the company's president, Don Bloom, resigned from his post.

The move came as a result of a lawsuit filed by Walnut Investment Partners, a Cincinnati-based venture capital fund that owns 45 percent of Petro Acquisitions. The suit claimed Petro Acquisitions failed to pay their share of an investment deal.

This latest development is just another in a long line of misfortunes for the company. Last week, CSNews Online reported that AmeriStop's parent company, Petro Acquisitions Inc., will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy before the end of the month.
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