Default Judgment Issued Against Ex-Pilot Sales Exec

By Walter F. Roche Jr.


An Alabama judge has issued a default judgment against a former Pilot Flying J sales executive in a civil suit against the truck stop chain and its top executives.
A Mobile County Judge Sarah Hicks Stewart today issued the judgment against Brian Mosher, the former national director of sales for Pilot. Mosher already has entered a guilty plea in federal court to charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. He is awaiting sentencing.
The ruling was issued in a suit filed by Wright Transportation, an Alabama trucking firm, that has charged that Pilot and certain of its executives, including CEO James A. Haslam, cheated the company out  of millions of dollars in promised diesel fuel  rebates.
The default judgment had been requested by Wright's attorney, Stephen M. Tunstall, who had charged that Mosher had falsely claimed that he was being forced to defend himself in two separate courts for the same charges.
Tunstall charged that Mosher, despite a court order, refused to file a response to the Alabama court action.
"Having failed to answer Wright's complaint, which has been pending for more than eight months, Defendant Mosher is in default," the Wright motion stated.
The Alabama suit is one of two remaining civil actions stemming from a highly publicized fuel rebate scandal. Charges that the company routinely cheated truckers out of promised rebates first surfaced after an FBI raid on the truck stop chain's Knoxville, Tenn. headquarters.
The other remaining suit is pending in Ohio and last week a Franklin County judge denied dismissal motions, which could clear the way for Haslam, owner of the Cleveland Browns, to be forced to testify for the first time about the rebate scandal.
Haslam has not been charged and has repeatedly denied he had any knowledge of the scheme. His deposition is also being sought in the Alabama case.