Norm Coleman concedes. Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

Norm Coleman concedes. Photo: Chris Steller, MnIndy

All of the allegations contained in a pair of lawsuits detailing a purported scheme to funnel $100,000 to then-U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman are false, according to the findings of a Special Litigation Committee appointed by the company at the center of the legal dispute.

The lawsuits allege that Nasser Kazeminy and his allies were responsible for gross fiscal mismanagement of Deep Marine Technology, a Houston-based underwater services firm. Among the alleged waste: an attempt by Kazeminy to provide funds to Coleman through a Minneapolis insurance firm where the former senator’s wife was employed.

The lawsuits were filed in the final days before voters went to the polls in the hotly contested U.S. Senate race between Coleman and Al Franken, which was finally settled on Tuesday with Coleman conceding the race to Franken after a lengthy recount and legal appeal which went to the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Bruce Gilman, chairman and CEO of Deep Marine Technology and parent firm Deep Marine Holdings, declines to discuss the specific allegation involving Coleman.

“All I can tell you is that all the allegations were found to be without merit,” he said. “I will not single out every one of the allegations in there because there are many, many allegations.”

The Special Litigation Committee was appointed to look into the charges shortly after the lawsuits were filed. The committee interviewed 24 people and scrutinized thousands of pages of documents during the eight-month investigation, according to Deep Marine Technology.

The initial lawsuit was filed in Harris County District Court in Texas, and is currently pending. A separate lawsuit involving the company, filed in Delaware, contained almost the exact same allegation regarding a Coleman-Kazeminy payoff scheme. That case has since been dismissed, however, according to Deep Marine Technology.

Norm and Laurie Coleman at a 2008 campaign event (Paul Demko)

Norm and Laurie Coleman at a 2008 campaign event (Photo by Paul Demko/Minnesota Independent)

Gilman says that the company will now seek to also have the Texas case thrown out. “We will move to dismiss the action in the Texas litigation as quickly as possible,” he said. “We were obviously waiting for this to be concluded.”

The announcement of the investigation’s findings comes just a day after Coleman conceded the protracted U.S. Senate contest to Franken. But Gilman insists that the timing is entirely coincidental.

“Frankly I’d never heard of Norm Coleman until this lawsuit,” he says. “Believe me we were trying to get this done as quickly as possible, because these things are expensive. But if you have an independent group doing this you can’t tell them what to do.”

Casey Wallace, the attorney representing McKim, argues that the investigation wasn’t independent, but rather was controlled by the company’s board of directors.

“We believe that the conclusions of the Special Litigation Committee are wrong, that the investigation was skewed to have a certain outcome,” he said. “The special litigation committee is the board; the board is the special litigation committee. We don’t believe it’s independent or serves any purpose.”

Wallace says the outcome of the investigation will have no affect on his client’s legal strategy. “We plan to go forward,” he said.

Coleman has said that all of the allegations are false and that the lawsuits are politically motivated. Kazeminy has also denied any wrongdoing in the matter.

Related: Texas firm “stonewalling” suit that names Coleman, lawyer says