City of Marion and Perry County Commission announce Monday “soft opening” for a project tied to the publicly traded Nevada corporation whose CEO, board members, and registered Alabama lobbyist are named as defendants in a federal racketeering suit filed last month in Texas
The City of Marion and the Perry County Commission announced Friday that a “soft opening” event will be held Monday at the former Judson College campus to introduce a development called The Atlas Complex, which promotional materials published by the City identify as a project of Callan JMB Inc.
Callan JMB, a publicly traded Nevada corporation, and several of its officers and affiliates are named as defendants in Eddie Patent Holdings LLC et al. v. Callan JMB Inc. et al., a federal racketeering lawsuit filed March 18 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The plaintiffs allege that Callan JMB CEO Wayne D. Williams, board member Donna Williams, board member and registered Alabama lobbyist Liberty Smith Duke, board member James J. Chao, former Alabama state senator and Callan JMB board member Gerald Dial, and related entities engaged in a coordinated scheme to misrepresent the company’s financing capacity to investors, to the State of Alabama, and to local governments in Perry County.
Duke is a registered lobbyist in Alabama. The Alabama Department of Commerce signed a project incentive agreement with Coldchain Technology Services, LLC, a Callan JMB affiliate, on December 7, 2025, contemplating a capital investment of $24.5 million at the Judson campus and creation of 51 jobs through a pharmaceutical logistics and distribution operation. The scheduled January 15, 2026 construction commencement date and March 1, 2026 capital investment target date have both passed without publicly reported action.
The Marion City Council approved tax abatements on January 5, 2026 for an entity called Judson College Properties, LLC, formed two days earlier by Williams with Duke as registered agent. The Perry County Commission approved tax abatements for the same entity on January 13. One week later, on January 20, Duke filed paperwork with the Alabama Secretary of State changing the entity’s name to Monarch Property Management, LLC. That same evening, Duke attended a Marion City Council meeting and discussed general plans for pharmaceutical logistics operations at the campus, citing a non-disclosure agreement when council members and members of the public asked for details.
The Judson College Foundation issued an email to alumnae on the evening of Thursday, April 16, announcing that the campus has been sold to Monarch Property Management, LLC. The email did not state a closing date, sale price, the identity of the buyer’s principals, or any reference to the pending federal litigation. As of Friday evening, no deed transferring the campus to Monarch or to any related entity had been recorded in Perry County Probate records.
On Friday afternoon, the City of Marion published an announcement of the Monday event on its official Facebook page, accompanied by a promotional graphic bearing the logo “Atlas Complex — By Callan JMB.” A subsequent post on the City’s Facebook page linked to a promotional video titled “Visionaries and Pioneers. The Callan JMB Origin Story,” hosted on Callan JMB’s YouTube channel, with text inviting the public to attend the Monday event.
A separate press release issued jointly Friday afternoon by Perry County Commission Chairman Albert Turner, Jr. and Mayor Dexter Hinton described the Atlas Complex as “a strategic investment in the future of Marion” and invited the public to attend.
Collectively, the Judson College Foundation, the City of Marion, Mayor Hinton individually, and Commission Chairman Turner have issued communications concerning the project within approximately thirty-six hours of the April 17 print edition of the Times-Standard-Herald, which first reported the federal litigation’s Alabama dimensions. None of those communications has acknowledged the federal litigation.
The federal complaint, filed by plaintiffs identified as Brett Jacobson and entities he controls, alleges that Williams and other Callan JMB officers misrepresented the company’s access to a $25 million equity line of credit with Hexstone Capital. The equity line, according to a Schedule 14C Information Statement filed by Callan JMB with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on October 3, 2025, had been drawn against in the amount of approximately $550,000, and the ELOC provider was not required to purchase shares on any trading day when Callan JMB’s stock price fell below $1.00. The complaint alleges that Williams nonetheless represented to plaintiffs, and through its state incentive application to the Alabama Department of Commerce, that the full amount of the equity line was untouched and available to capitalize the Marion project. Callan JMB trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol CJMB and was recently trading near $1.90 per share.
Ethics filings submitted to the Alabama Ethics Commission show that Duke registered as a lobbyist for 2026 on January 23, listing Coldchain Technology Services among her principals. She did not list Callan JMB, Judson College Properties, or Monarch Property Management as represented clients. Her quarterly statement for October through December 2025 — the period during which the Project Summit Agreement was negotiated and signed — likewise lists Coldchain but not the related entities.
The Times-Standard-Herald sent written requests for comment Friday afternoon to the Judson College Foundation, to Monarch Property Management, LLC through Duke as its registered agent of record, to Mayor Hinton and the City of Marion, and to the Alabama Department of Commerce. A noon Monday deadline was provided. No responses had been received as of publication. The Alabama Department of Commerce has not responded to multiple prior inquiries regarding the status of the Project Summit Agreement.
The complaint in Eddie Patent Holdings LLC et al. v. Callan JMB Inc. et al., Case No. 3:26-cv-00885-X, is publicly available through the PACER federal court records system. No responsive pleading has yet been filed by any named defendant.
The Alabama Beacon and the Times-Standard-Herald will continue to report on this matter.
