One of Fresno's major power brokers is alleged to be in bad financial conditions.
His family's farming company defaulted on $700 million in loans in 2024.
The former chief financial officer of Granville Homes has accused prominent Fresno developer Darius Assemi of raiding his own company — diverting as much as $16 million in corporate cash to secretly buy back a ranch his family had lost to its creditors, using a longtime business associate as a front to keep his name off of public land records.
In a complaint filed June 16 in Fresno County Superior Court, Ryan Toncheff says Assemi fired him this month after he refused to certify financial statements he believed were false and warned that Granville Homes — the privately held homebuilder at the heart of the Assemi family’s collapsing business empire — was insolvent.
“He didn’t want anyone to know what was going on,” said Matthew Ruggles, Toncheff’s attorney. “They’re desperate.”
The suit, which names Granville Homes and Assemi personally along with as many as 50 unnamed “Doe” defendants, brings claims of wrongful termination, whistleblower retaliation, fraud and unfair business practices.
The allegations cut against the posture Assemi has taken throughout his family’s financial unraveling.
When the $700 million default first surfaced in 2024, Assemi wrote on GV Wire — the news outlet he publishes — that Granville Homes was “lead independently” from the family’s agricultural operations and that he did not expect the...
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