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GREENSBORO — With a fraud complaint filed this month against Guilford County Commissioner Steve Arnold, he may have more than his recent bankruptcy filing to worry about.

Should his financial woes make a difference? Join the discussion at the Debatables blog.

Hickory attorney Jimmy Summerlin asked a court to make Arnold pay a debt he owes to investors after he and his company, Arcon Inc., filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy in November.

Summerlin's Feb. 11 filing, in the Middle District U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Greensboro, also claims Arnold fraudulently gave titles on land and property that he owned to his parents and father-in-law without payment and lists a complaint of unfair trade practices.

The complaint alleges that Arnold transferred the property to family members to stop creditors from getting at his land to settle debt.

"I signed a note for Steve (Arnold) at the bank and he defaulted," said Manuel Perkins, who said he invested $200,000 in a development that

Arnold and his company planned. The complaint Perkins hired Summerlin to file seeks that money, plus $10,000 in punitive damages from Arnold.

Perkins invested in Brightwood Farm, a development for which Arnold's company broke ground in 2002.

Arnold has said that a string of severe weather events washed out the development and made it difficult to build. In November, Arnold said that streets had to be graded several times and that construction dates were pushed back months because of the weather.

"I made a bad decision," said Perkins, a retired private water utility owner. "And I thought he was a man of God, and I thought he would come through. He said he'd pay me back no matter what, and he didn't."

Arnold did not return calls Monday afternoon.

Arnold's court trouble goes back to September, when he was nearly put in jail over failure to follow Superior Court orders from a civil lawsuit over Brightwood. Earlier in the year, he was ordered to begin payments on $1.275 million he owed an investor.

In October, Arcon paid a court-ordered sum of $6,250 and released paperwork to Elkes Development, the company Arnold has battled in the long-running suit over the construction of the Archdale subdivision.

Arnold and his company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in November. Filings then showed debt at more than $12 million for Arnold and his company, with assets of $250,000.

Now, he faces a fraud complaint.

Several times since last fall's court proceedings and the bankruptcy filing, Arnold has talked about whether to resign as a commissioner.

Arnold, a Republican, has served on the board since 1990 and is its senior member. He has held seats on the High Point City Council and the state House of Representatives. In 1996, he made an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor.

Contact Gerald Witt at 373-7008, or gerald.witt@news-record.com