Daniel Rohricht seemed to get through his Chapter 7 bankruptcy pretty smoothly.
The jewelry in his two failed stores was gone, he told the court, sold off or dismantled and in some cases melted down. Although an angry federal bankruptcy judge declared Rohricht owed more than $253,000, she had no proof that he was hiding assets. The settlement gave his creditors just $17,500.
But Rohricht hadn't figured on the relentlessness of Nauni Jo Manty.
Manty, a Minneapolis attorney appointed as a trustee to represent the creditors, would not let go. For four years, she pursued Rohricht from one store location to another, from Minnesota to Wisconsin. She posted a process server outside one store to watch his comings and goings. She sent a secret shopper in to photograph his inventory. She had his truck followed.
Now Rohricht, 62, awaits sentencing and a prison term of up to two and a half years and a $50,000 fine under federal guidelines, after pleading guilty last month to concealing bankruptcy assets. No sentencing date has been set.
Manty, who has a reputation for digging deep into cases, gets high marks in the world of bankruptcy law in Minnesota.
"She is dogged in her pursuit," says Tim Pramas, an attorney who worked on the case with her and now is employed by the general counsel office at the University of Minnesota. "She takes her responsibilities very seriously."
Manty, a graduate of William Mitchell College of Law, rarely talks to the media. "Trustees do their jobs in situations like these in order to keep the bankruptcy system honest," she simply said.