A Federal Way attorney and business owner is the subject of a lawsuit alleging the theft of nearly $20 million.
Shawn Harju is accused of receiving $114,000 via self-dealing as an escrow agent through false invoices and fraudulent payments that added up to about $20 million in losses for the Highmore Financing Company, which filed a complaint for damages in June in King County Superior Court.
Harju is an attorney with Chrysalis Solutions, owns Three Trees Yoga in Federal Way, and serves on the Federal Way Chamber of Commerce board of directors as vice chair.
The Mirror reached out to Harju and Highmore multiple times for comment, but received no response.
In the complaint, Highmore Financing has alleged that Harju engaged in a breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract, negligent and/or intentional misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and civil conspiracy as an escrow agent while working for Equinox Law Group in Bellevue.
“The facts underlying this lawsuit arise out of Defendants Equinox and Harju’s specific involvement in the highly sophisticated scheme to bilk Highmore out of tens of millions of dollars,” according to the lawsuit.
Highmore Financing Company said in the lawsuit that it provided financing to Jason Greig’s company, The Greig Companies (TGC) to purchase high-end computer servers and ancillary equipment from a company named Storbyte. The equipment was then to be installed and hosted by Greig and Jeffrey Sparrow’s company, Datassure.
Harju was brought into this agreement when she entered into the first of five escrow agreements as the escrow agent on behalf of Equinox to disburse the funds lent to TGC from Highmore. The first escrow agreement was on Sept. 20, 2019, and the last was on Jan. 30, 2020.
Following the Jan. 2020 agreement, TGC had repaid Highmore. But following this agreement, which was due for payment on May 30, 2020, TGC defaulted and still had not paid Highmore when the lawsuit was filed, owing a total of $19,954,515.07.
The lawsuit said that in the escrow agreements, all of the funds provided by Highmore were only to be sent by Harju and Equinox to Storbyte. But then allegedly, a majority of the money was sent to Greig and his companies, Equinox and Harju, unbeknownst to Highmore.
The lawsuit said that because TGC had fraudulently represented itself as having capital and promised repayment following the default, Highmore had no reason to believe it had been defrauded until more than a year later, when the company received photocopies of instructions to Harju and Equinox, which were in violation of the escrow agreement.
The lawsuit alleges that Equinox and Harju had a pre-existing attorney-client relationship with TGC and Datassure, which created a conflict of interest. The lawsuit said that Greig hand-selected Equinox as the escrow agent to ultimately facilitate the improper and fraudulent disbursement of funds to himself, TGC, Datassure, Storbyte and Equinox.
The lawsuit said Harju received instructions that contravened all five of the escrow agreements, and that Harju and Equinox knowingly or recklessly perpetuated the fraud against Highmore. Highmore alleges that TGC used the funds given to them for equipment to repay Highmore to create the sense that they were credit-worthy and entitled to an increase in their credit line. Additionally, the lawsuit alleges they did this to execute a Ponzi-like scheme in which Highmore’s funds had been misappropriated.
“Equinox’s involvement as escrow agent to process payments to Storbyte was very important to Highmore because it provided assurance that Highmore’s funds would be processed in accordance with the Storbyte invoices that Highmore was funding and that were incorporated into the escrow agreements,” The lawsuit said. “As it turned out, the reverse was true. The use of the escrow agent allowed Defendants and the Greig parties to conceal from Highmore the fact that a substantial portion of its funds were not going to Storbyte at all, but rather were being transferred to Defendants and their co-conspirators.”
The lawsuit alleges that by taking the role of the escrow agent for all the escrow agreements, Equinox and Harju assumed a duty to Highmore to maintain and disburse Highmore’s funds in accordance with the terms of the escrow agreements. Additionally, the lawsuit states that Harju and Equinox had an obligation not to engage in self-dealing, but they ended up receiving $114,000 from disbursing Highmore’s funds to themselves instead of to Storbyte.
As of Aug. 15, 2024, Harju and Equinox have filed motions to dismiss, but the trial to assess the motion is set for Oct. 18, 2024, and a trial date is set for June 30, 2025. Storbyte is also facing a lawsuit from Highmore, and they filed motions to dismiss, which were denied, according to the lawsuit.
