Tazewell County judge Chris Doscotch approved an agreement on Thursday to place Pekin-based Reditus Laboratories in a receivership.
That means a court-appointed receiver agreed upon by the parties involved in the civil lawsuits filed against the company will now control Reditus' affairs and finances — not CEO Aaron Rossi.
"An agreement has been reached, and an independent person has been appointed for Reditus Laboratories, LLC, in which the parties are all working together to preserve Reditus LLC's business and workforce in central Illinois," Doscotch said.
Those "independent persons" are attorneys Adam Silverman and Howard Adelman of Chicago. They will be assisted by an accountant.
The judge's announcement came after more than an hour of behind-closed-door negotiations during a case management conference for a civil lawsuit filed against Rossi by his business partner, James Davie.
More than a dozen attorneys are currently involved in the case, between the plaintiffs and defendants.
Rossi also faces federal tax fraud charges. Neither he nor Davie appeared Thursday in Tazewell County Court.
Reditus Labs received millions of dollars in state contracts from the Illinois Department of Public Health and Illinois Department of Corrections to handle COVID-19 testing.
WCBU and other Central Illinois media organizations have filed a petition to intervene in the case to unseal financial records as a matter of the public interest.
Attorneys for Rossi filed a motion Wednesday to disqualify Don Craven, the lawyer representing those media organizations. Judge Doscotch asked the parties to return to court on May 2. That allows Rossi's PAL Health Technologies and Reditus time to file their own motions to disqualify by April 22. Craven must file written responses by April 29.
Davie's counsel also withdrew a motion to reconsider a protection order on the financial documents at question in the case. Craven requested to see the correspondence associated with that motion to examine them for inconsistencies.
