Independent Fiduciary Appointed to Distribute $1.5M in Abandoned Plans

The U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon has granted the Department of Labor (DOL)’s motion for default judgment against Portland, Oregon-based National Security Retirement Plan LLC and Invest n’ Retire LLC for abandoning employer-sponsored benefit plans.

The plans hold the assets of 31 participants that are worth more than $1.5 million. The participants were employees of Retirement Solutions Advisors LLC, the National Association for Plan Liability and Keene Photography Studio.

After an investigation by the DOL’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), a complaint was filed on June 15, alleging that the defendants, along with their owners and former fiduciaries and trustees—Darwin and Carolyn Abrahamson—misappropriated plan assets before abandoning the plans in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA).

According to the DOL, in December 2017, the Abrahamsons took their own lives, leaving their companies and the plans without executives, employees or fiduciaries to operate them. The court has removed the two defendants as fiduciaries of the plans and appointed Retirement Solutions Advisors LLC to serve as independent fiduciary to distribute assets to participants.