Dive Brief:
- SQRL founder Blake Smith and one of his former associates have been accused of forging title documents for at least two convenience stores, according to court filings in Palm Beach County, Florida; and in Lonoke County and Saline County, Arkansas.
- The allegations stem from c-stores in Bryant and England, Arkansas, which Smith sold to and leased back from real estate firm Cameron Properties in December 2023. The Florida filing claims Smith never actually owned these properties, but “manufactured phony deeds and forged the signatures” of its owners, Files Development LLC, to make the deal with Cameron.
- This marks the latest in a series of bizarre and tumultuous events over the past year for SQRL and Smith, who may be forced into bankruptcy by the company he sold his c-stores to in April.
Dive Insight:
The Florida lawsuit says that Smith was at one point in discussions with Files Development to acquire the Bryant and England convenience stores, but eventually withdrew his purchase offer for unknown reasons.
Still, Smith carried on with the sale-leaseback deal with Cameron as if he owned the properties, and delivered false deeds to these stores, the filing says. Cameron acquired the properties for a total of $4 million, according to the filing.
According to Aaron Heffington, the attorney representing Files Development, Files learned of Smith’s actions when it received eviction notices — addressed to SQRL — for those stores earlier this year. Heffington, an attorney with the law firm Gill Ragon Owen, said neither Smith nor SQRL ever possessed those two properties.
“My client got those eviction notices and was like ‘Hey, I don’t know what’s going on here,’” Heffington said.
Lawsuits have been filed in Arkansas for each of the properties, with Files Development aiming to invalidate the deeds between Cameron and SQRL, Heffington said.
Both of those filings say that the signatures of Timothy Files, Files Development’s manager, and Marlah Bozarth, the notary public, were forged in the deeds between Cameron and SQRL for each store.
Smith denied the forgery accusations via text message when reached to comment. Instead, he said that “Files Development and SQRL have jointly sued Cameron Property Group for falsely filing deeds.”
Heffington said Smith’s response that Files and SQRL are jointly suing Cameron is untrue.
“Whether or not SQRL has also sued Cameron for falsifying something, I don’t know, but there hasn’t been some joint effort to do that between Files Development and SQRL,” Heffington said.
Both Arkansas filings allege that Bozarth’s signature was forged by Carrie Draper, a former colleague of Bozarth’s who, according to her LinkedIn bio, was SQRL’s transaction coordinator between April 2023 and April 2024. Bozarth claims that Draper used Bozarth’s notary stamp to forge the signature.
According to the Florida filing, Cameron spent $93 million, plus an additional $8 million in tenant improvement funds at closing, to acquire 31 c-store properties from SQRL in December 2023. The Bryant and England properties were part of that group, along with stores in Florida, Texas and Oklahoma.
The two Arkansas lawsuits, both of which were filed on June 25, name SQRL Service Stations LLC as the defendant. The Florida lawsuit, filed on June 10, names Smith and his entity, Standard Development, as well as SQRL’s eventual buyer Gas Hub LLC and its owner Jamal Hizam.
Hizam, who is fighting in court to avoid Smith’s previous debts with SQRL prior to acquiring the convenience stores, denied any wrongdoing. An attorney representing Cameron Group did not respond by press time to comment on the situation.
