Firms accused of reorganizing to avoid payment of Sprint bills

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2001 | 11:09 a.m.

Sprint Corp., the dominant phone company in Las Vegas, sued four phone service resellers that it claims ran up $146,793 in unpaid phone bills and then reorganized into new corporations in order to avoid paying the bills.

Sued were Easy Cellular Plus, Easy Cellular Inc., Easy Phone Inc., Pre-Paid Phones Ltd. and an alleged alter ego of the companies, the Lorinda C. Bucchieri Family Limited Partnership. Sprint claims the companies and the partnership are predecessors or successors to each other and may have shared funds and assets.

Sprint's lawsuit said: "The defendants obtain goods and services on credit through one legal entity and fail to pay for those goods and services until that legal entity is no longer sold goods or services on credit. Rather than paying for those goods and services ... the defendants form a new legal entity for the purpose of obtaining goods and services on credit."

Peter Bucchieri, husband of Lorinda Bucchieri and manager of Pre-Paid Phones, declined comment on the allegation that the companies owe Sprint $146,793.

He said he had not seen the lawsuit and couldn't comment on the allegation the companies had reorganized in order to avoid paying their Sprint bill.

Bucchieri said the two Easy Cellular companies have gone out of business because they lost their contract with a cellular carrier.

He said Easy Phone went out of business as well and that Pre-Paid Phones has no relationship with the other companies and no dispute with Sprint.