More details to this question:
A "friend" talked to me about making investments in real estate. I ended up making payments to him with respect to this investment. As it appeared to be a long termed venture he asked me to help him with some of his legal problems to which I sold my home and gave him the equity. We drew up a contract that he has breached for a lesser amount than the total investment. I've not seen any invoices as to how the money was spent, he's used dummy companies, and I'm out of close to $100,000. It has been 15 years since initial investment and we're still "negotiating" about repayment. I have since moved out of state but initially the transactions occurred in VA .
1 ANSWER
There is really no such thing as a private criminal suit. Criminal actions are brought by the government to punish people for crimes. Civil suits are brought to recover damages for civil wrongs (breach of contract, fraud, etc.) The two are in no way mutually exclusive. Thus, if someone steals your money, the goverment may prosecute a criminal action against the perpetrator for theft, while you would sue the perpetrator for damages sustained by reason of his/her conversion of your property. Here, you loaned your friend some money and he has breached the contract to repay that money. You can sue for breach of contract and possibly other causes of action (breach of fiduciary duty, fraud?). Depending on the actual facts, he may also have committed crimes, for which the government may (if you alert it) prosecute him. Either way, if the wrongful acts occurred so long ago, there are likely to be problems with the statute of limitations.
Answered on Aug 26th, 2014 at 10:07 AM