Failed Ghana Venture leads to Fraud claims against Duluth woman

A Duluth woman had an enterprising idea to open a rice plantation in Ghana, where 10 percent of the population is classified as under-nourished.

The government of Ghana, by backing the project, had the chance to provide a food staple for some of its 19.5 million people and to save $120 million annually on rice imports.

Six years later, the government of Ghana has been forced to take over the project and to cover the debt created by Quality Grain of Duluth or risk losing its worldwide credit. Quality Grain has crumbled into lawsuits and only one-fortieth of the planned 20,000-acre plantation is being cultivated.

The company president, Juliet Renee Woodward Cotton of Duluth, has closed her Gwinnett County office, leaving no forwarding address. She also recently declared that pregnancy-related memory loss has left her temporarily unable to defend against a lawsuit that alleges she is living a life of luxury on at least part of the money that was supposed to develop the rice plantation.

And the project that some had such hope for has become a symbol of political corruption in the African nation.

Ghana President John Kufuor emerged the winner in last year's election, in part, by accusing the sitting administration and local officials of "wasting the nation's resources in corrupt deals." One of the deals Kufuor cited was the government's venture with Cotton and Quality Grain in Ghana's community of Aveyime, said Kofi Coomson, editor of the Ghanaian Chronicle, a newspaper that has monitored the project since its inception.

"We were expecting to develop 20,000 acres overall, but we only have 515 acres now (being farmed), and $20 million of our own money has gone up in smoke," said Coomson.

Oscar Hudson, Cotton's uncle and a Quality Grain investor, believes Cotton --- who received Ghana-backed loans to start the rice plantation --- spent some of the money buying two Mercedes, a Jaguar and Armani clothes, according to a lawsuit Hudson filed in Gwinnett Superior Court.

She also paid herself $830,000, paid her husband $400,000 in salary and used $650,000 as a down payment on her $1.7 million home in a gated community in Duluth, said Hudson's attorney, Jerome Green of Little Rock.

"We are asking that the money spent from the corporation without shareholder authorization be returned to the corporation," Green said. "We believe the amount may be as much as $12 million."

Cotton, 37, has denied any wrongdoing and has filed a countersuit against Hudson of Kalamazoo, Mich., for slander and interference with her business.

Last month, she asked Gwinnett Superior Court to delay a trial on Hudson's lawsuit at least until May. In a motion she filed herself, she said her attorney had withdrawn from the case and she has been coping with memory loss since giving birth to twin girls in June.

The illness "has rendered me incompetent to discuss my defense with any completeness with another attorney," Cotton wrote.

An attached doctor's note verified a "mild memory loss" and cautioned against stressful situations that could raise Cotton's blood pressure.

Cotton could not be reached by telephone and did not respond to messages left at the security gate of the St. Ives Country Club subdivision in north Fulton, where she lives.

An office on Crestwood Parkway near Lilburn, that was once the headquarters for Quality Grain, has a new tenant and no forwarding address.

Hudson said the claims he has raised in his lawsuit have generated federal interest.

FBI officials would not confirm that they are investigating Quality Grain. But, Hudson and two others --- a former officer in the company and one of Cotton's financial consultants --- have said they have been questioned by the FBI and Internal Revenue about the company.

"There has been a lot of cheating and fraud by this lady on both her partners and the Ghanaian government," said Dick Anyadi of Ghana, Hudson's overseas attorney.

"They were supposed to start production in 1997," Anyadi said. "This rice project was suppose to produce sufficient rice to at least cover the quantity of rice Ghana imports every year, as well as produce enough rice for purposes of exporting it to other African countries."

SouthTrust Bank brokered $21 million in loans for the Quality Grain rice project. The Export Import Bank of the United States insured part of the loan, and Ghana guaranteed all of it, according to the lawsuit.

Hudson said he put more than $162,000 into Quality Grain, starting in 1991, because it was an appealing venture.

"She (Cotton) came to me talking about it was a God project and he had put it in her heart," Hudson said. "I would watch on TV those babies with the swollen bellies with their eyes bugged out and wonder why they would not plant food for themselves. There was land as far as the eye could see."

Hudson said he was prepared to see what would develop from his investment until he made an unannounced visit to Quality Grain in 1998 and was told by Cotton that he could not see receipts for expenditures or examine the company's books.

Ferris Shelton of Norcross, a former Quality Grain accountant who spent eight months in Ghana, said: "All of the tractors, trucks and fertilizers, combines everything were in place.

"As president it was up to her (Cotton) to say yeah or nay," Shelton said. "I was dismayed by the delays."

Cotton has been quoted in Ghana's newspapers blaming the country's leaders for not educating the local chiefs on the merits of the rice project.

Published reports in Ghana quote landowners in Aveyime as saying they resisted because they were not being fairly compensated for their land by the government or Quality Grain.