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What Pamplin and his company admitted doing

He exchanged inappropriate, overvalued real estate for pension fund dollars: “Dr. Pamplin and Pamplin Corporation sold employer real property to the Pension Plan for the purpose of and with the intent to obtain cash for Pamplin Corporation and the Pamplin Affiliates to the detriment of the best interests of the Pension Plan’s participants and beneficiaries,” the agreement says.

In some cases, Pamplin took advantage of pensioners on leasebacks: “(Pamplin signed) leaseback agreements with Pamplin Corporation and the Pamplin affiliates that contained highly unfavorable terms to the pension plan.”

Some of the properties sold to the pension fund carried liabilities: Pamplin admitted to “selling and contributing to the Pension Plan certain employer real property saddled with unpaid property taxes or other encumbrances that Pamplin Corporation and the Pamplin Affiliates had failed to pay or clear, thereby reducing their value.”

Pamplin obtained inflated apprasials for polluted Ross Island Sand & Gravel properties – and didn’t bother reading them: “Dr. Pamplin and Pamplin Corporation caused the pension plan to acquire Ross Island Property (appraised value of $10,600,000) and Tait Property (appraised value of $4,800,000) using appraisals that did not account for significant environmental issues that reduced their fair market values below the appraised values. Defendants also failed to read the appraisal reports to confirm that the appraisers had accounted for these environmental issues.” The settlement requires Ross Island Sand & Gravel to take back the two properties and replace them in the pension fund with other assets.

Criminal charges against Pamplin remain a possibility: “Nothing in this Consent Judgment shall preclude the Acting Secretary from…instituting, recommending, and or referring for any criminal proceeding.”

— Oregon Journalism Project