Brenda Sargent
Chancellor Frank Brown today ruled in favor of Brenda Sargent, wife of well-known plastic surgeon Dr. Larry Sargent, saying she had to pay usurious rates to her former house painter.
Chancellor Brown directed Stan Carnahan to pay $161,100 to Mrs. Sargent for "excess interest."
The judge said Mrs. Sargent "gave Mr. Carnahan a lot more money that Mr. Carnahan gave her."
He also said Mr. Carnahan had demanded an extra $66,000 in interest, while threatening to tell her husband about her financial transactions.
There was testimony that Mrs. Sargent borrowed large sums from Mr. Carnahan and others and then repaid - mainly when her husband's bonuses came in.
Mr. Carnahan said he was disappointed in the ruling and will appeal. He said the judge had not allowed his witnesses to show "that she had fraudulent intent. The same thing happened to them." He said, "The money never went for the purposes she said it was going."
Ronnie Berke, attorney for the Sargents, said they had been "completely vindicated. But the sad thing is that all these slurs have been made against them."
He said there will be a trial of a lawsuit brought by a Los Angeles man who said he gave Mrs. Sargent large sums of money, jewelry and other items. He said she went by another name and told him she was not married, while agreeing to marry him.
Mrs. Sargent testified in Chancery Court Wednesday that she kept details of the dozens of deals from her husband, who is best known for his surgeries on children with extensive facial deformities for the local Craniofacial Foundation.
"I have not been a good wife. I have gotten us very deeply in debt. That is why my husband is at the hospital in surgery now and is not in court," she said.
Chancellor Brown on Wednesday dismissed Dr. Sargent as a defendant in the lawsuit brought by Mr. Carnahan, who claimed he was owed $219,000 by the Sargents. The judge said there was no proof that Dr. Sargent had any knowledge of his wife's deals. The plaintiffs claimed that Dr. Sargent did know about them and benefitted from them.
Attorney Damon Lee said the Sargents used the deals "to buy Ferraris, Mercedes and other autos, her clothes and household items to maintain the lifestyle they were living."
The Sargents filed a cross-complaint against Mr. Carnahan, saying he owes them over $350,000 in excessive interest charges.
It was testified that Mr. Carnahan and Mrs. Sargent met in 1990 when he was painting the couple's house.
Attorney Lee said Mrs. Sargent began asking Mr. Carnahan for money, and he "became her friend" and seldom turned her down.
Attorney Lee said the suit was brought after Mrs. Sargent gave Mr. Carnahan three checks, but he found out there was not money in the bank to cover them.
Attorney Berke said it was Mr. Carnahan who got the best of the deals. He said there are checks showing that Mrs. Sargent paid him $993,000 over the course of several years. He said the Sargent check registry lists another $149,500. He said money going from Mr. Carnahan to Mrs. Sargent was $570,750, according to the checks.
He called Mr. Carnahan "nothing more than a loan shark."
Attorney Berke called accountant Mike Costello, who said Mr. Carnahan had charged over $350,000 in excess interest.
Attorney Lee said it was Mrs. Sargent who structured all the deals and kept records of them. "She set all the terms," he said.
Mrs. Sargent did not say what she used the borrowed money for, except to pay off money she had borrowed from someone else.
She told of writing large checks to repay loans within days after Dr. Sargent received periodic bonuses of $250,000 to $300,000.
Mrs. Sargent said she completely controlled the couple's finances and checkbook, and she did not tell her husband of her myriad of transactions.
Mrs. Sargent, a striking blonde, said Mr. Carnahan began threatening to tell her husband about the deals if she did not pay him more money.
Asked her educational background, Mrs. Sargent said, "I flunked out of the 10th grade at Central High School in Washington, D.C."
Maziar Aflaki is the California man who has sued the Sargents and Tina Johnson of Ooltewah.
He said he met Ms. Johnson and Mrs. Sargent in L.A., but he said Mrs. Sargent was going under the name Brittany Nichole Christenson. He said he began an intimate affair with the woman he knew as "Brit."
Mr. Aflaki said he met the woman he later learned was Mrs. Sargent in Atlanta once and in Chattanooga several times. He said she accepted his marriage proposal and engagement ring.
Attorneys for the Sargents said Mr. Aflaki had contacted the FBI about the Sargents and "gave them the name of Carnahan and his friends."
Attorney Berke said Mr. Carnahan was "trying to destroy the marriage" of the Sargents.
He said that on one occasion, Mr. Carnahan had gone to Kinko's on Brainerd Road and faxed copies of the Aflaki lawsuit to Memorial Hospital, Erlanger Hospital and the Craniofacial Foundation.
Mrs. Sargent told of borrowing large sums from a number of Chattanoogans, including Don Bowman and Mack Beagles.
She said Ooltewah businessman Phil Martin had given her $110,650 at the time he was married to Kim Martin. She said that money was repaid.
Chancellor Brown said Mr. Carnahan had gone to the Craniofacial Foundation and told director Terry Farmer that he was owed several hundred thousand dollars by the Sargents and that she should call attorney Berke.
He said Mrs. Sargent had "capitulated" to the money demands of Mr. Carnahan. He said it was up to the court "to repel those who come into court with bad motives and bad behavior."
Stan Carnahan