Steve Bachar, a disbarred Denver lawyer and former businessman. (BusinessDen file photo)
Steve Bachar, an admitted thief who will be sentenced later this month, has been ordered to pay about $270,000 to a retired energy consultant in an unrelated case.
Denver District Court Judge Stephanie Scoville issued the order Dec. 27, 10 months after Bachar was sued by Robert Hanfling. Bachar never responded to the lawsuit, so Scoville sided with Hanfling and issued a default judgment against Bachar.
Hanfling, the former energy consultant, loaned Bachar $99,000 between November 2011 and July 2012 “with a mutual understanding agreement that the loaned funds would be repaid,” according to Hanfling’s lawsuit. Bachar repaid only $5,000 of the $99,000.
Bachar, a disbarred attorney, was served the lawsuit in June but never responded to it. So, Hanfling asked that a default judgment be entered in August. Four months later, one was.
A voicemail message left for Bachar was not returned this week.
The judgment adds to a long and growing list of court orders against Bachar, casting serious doubt on his ability to pay Hanfling the $270,836 that he now owes him.
“My client would like to collect on his judgment, just like everybody else who is owed money by this guy would like to collect,” said Hanfling lawyer Mark Saliman of Saliman Law in Denver.
Bachar owes $3.8 million to Future Health Co., which won a court judgment against him in 2021. Future Health says Bachar was hired to act as a middleman between it and the state of Wisconsin, which needed 3 million medical gowns in 2020, but Bachar kept the money he was paid by Wisconsin and never paid Future Health for those gowns.
Bachar also owes $700,000 to the Denver-based dialysis company DaVita. That company first sued Bachar in October 2020, claiming it paid him $605,000 for N95 masks that he never provided, and won a default judgment against him after he ignored the lawsuit. DaVita sued him again in June 2022, saying he had refused to pay the $700,000 court judgment.
All three civil matters are unrelated to the criminal case against Bachar. On Nov. 14, he pleaded guilty to felony theft and misdemeanor theft as part of a plea agreement that will allow him to avoid prison time if he pays $174,370 in restitution at his Jan. 27 sentencing.
Bachar, 57, admitted to convincing Jamie Lindsay, a former friend who he knew from their time working on Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign and then in the Clinton administration, to invest $125,000 in Empowerment Capital, a consulting company Bachar co-owned, in 2017.
Bachar did not have authority to sell Lindsay a stake in Empowerment Capital and falsely marketed the investment as a sure bet, downplaying its risks. Bachar then squandered the $125,000 on personal expenses, according to his plea agreement.
Lindsay is scheduled to testify at Bachar’s sentencing hearing later this month.
