Georgia Bowman, former wife of Nampa, Idaho real estate businessman, Jerry Gunstream was ruled innocent of fraud and embezzlement charges. Judge Juneal Kerrick of the 3rd District Court denied the fraud claim in court Dec. 10 and denied the conversion claim in an order she issued Dec. 30. Conversion is the act of taking something of value for one’s own use.

Idaho State Police are investigating Gunstream for other allegations of embezzlement. He has admitted taking $598,000 from various property owners.

Airport Partners of Oregon sued Gunstream last summer after the former Nampa commercial real estate businessman admitted that he took $125,000 of the company’s money from a property management account.

But the lawyer for the company Gunstream stole from said Ms. Bowman is still part of the company’s civil lawsuit because she may have benefited indirectly from Gunstream’s embezzlement.

“I’m not aware of any evidence at this time that Georgia (Bowman) actively handled Airport Partners’ money,” Airport Partners attorney Kevin Dinius said. “We sued her because she was an active member of Gunstream Commercial Real Estate LLC and with respect to her common interest (in the marriage.)”

Bowman’s attorney, John Sutton, said neither circumstance applies to her.

“I think they jumped to the assumption that because she’s married to this guy (GunStream), then she must be part of the business,” he said.

Airport Partners lawyers wanted to amend their lawsuit to claim Bowman committed fraud and conversion with respect to the money Gunstream took. The attorneys for Airport Partners named Bowman and Gunstream employees Monique Keck and Kim May as plaintiffs along with Gunstream in their civil lawsuit. They also named Gunstream’s former company, Gunstream Commercial Real Estate, in the lawsuit filed last year.

Kerrick dismissed the plaintiffs’ fraud claim against May and Keck but denied summary judgment on a conversion claim against May and Keck.

Bowman listed herself as 50 percent owner of her ex-husband’s commercial real estate company on loan applications and income tax returns. But her attorney maintains she did not benefit from her husband’s embezzlement from the company.

Kerrick cited Idaho law in her order, which states that the debts of a limited liability company do not become debts of a member or manager of the company “solely by reason of a member acting as a member.” Gunstream dissolved the company last year after he was sued.

Lawyers for Airport Partners of Oregon argued that some of Bowman and Gunstream’s applications and tax returns show Bowman is partly liable for Gunstream’s embezzlement. Gunstream said he took the money from Airport Partners last year to keep his business operating.

“There are situations where the individual members of (a) company can be held responsible for the company’s actions,” Dinius said last month about his argument that Bowman is liable in the case. “That’s why the tax return and the loan applications are so important at this point because they certainly are contrary to everything that Ms Bowman is saying that she wasn’t involved in the business,” he added.

But Bowman’s attorney said she had no connection to the stolen money. The two loan applications were for two pieces of subdivision property. And the listings as part owner of Gunstream’s company were for income tax purposes only, Sutton said.

“It’s community property and she’s taxable for half of it, so any income that came out of it she has to disclose,” Sutton said. “(But) she wasn’t actually an owner or an officer of the corporation. She was just married to Gunstream … She had no knowledge of what was going on with this thing.”

Sutton said attorneys for the plaintiffs are casting a wide net in an attempt to recoup money for their clients.

Georgia Bowman, who is President of the Nampa Chamber of Commerce, said in a court affidavit that “although net income from Gunstream Commercial Real Estate was characterized as community property for tax purposes, I was never by law made a member of Gunstream Commercial Real Estate.”

The Idaho Secretary of State’s Web site records list Gunstream as the only member of Gunstream Commercial Properties on its 2000 Articles of Organization.

Bowman also states in the affidavit that she was “never a party to … any contract … in respect to the management of Holly Shopping Center,” which was the shopping center Airport Partners owned and Gunstream managed.