A U.S. Trustee has moved one step closer to recovering some of the $2.8 million that creditors to bankrupt developer R.W. Hertel & Sons say they are owed.

In a document filed in bankruptcy court Aug. 31, Trustee Sandra McBeth said she’d located assets of R.W. Hertel & Sons and planned to divvy them up to creditors. The Ventura-based homebuilder was forced into involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy in January.

Since then, McBeth has hunted for assets to repay creditors, hiring a Los Angeles law firm to help in the search. The Aug. 31 filing didn’t say how much McBeth had found.

In bankruptcy court hearings, Bob Fowler, one of the two men behind R.W. Hertel & Sons, said that he and partner Ron Hertel ran up as much as $100 million in debts while building thousands of homes across California. Before it collapsed, the duo’s business empire also included airplanes, a thoroughbred horse ranch and a yacht worth more than $4 million.

McBeth was in court Aug. 31 and couldn’t be reached.

[Editor’s note: This story was updated Sept. 2. The original posting of this story misspelled Bob Fowler’s name.]

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