Allegheny and Western Energy hit with lawsuit

CHARLESTON - A mother and her son have filed a lawsuit against Allegheny and Western Energy Corp., claiming the company stopped making payments to them.

Concetta Lewenthal and Reeves Lewenthal, Jr. entered the lawsuit July 6 into Kanawha Circuit Court. They say Reeves Lewenthal, Sr. had transferred the revenues he gained with oil and gas leasehold rights with the company to his wife and son before he passed away.

Concetta and Reeves Jr. say the payments have mysteriously stopped.

"For some unknown reason, shortly after the death of Reeves Lewenthal, the defendant terminated the monthly payments to the plaintiffs and diverted such revenues to some other unknown recipient and Plaintiffs have attempted for some time to have the defendant reverse its actions or provide legal justification for its actions, as the only reason thus far provided is that they could find no written assignment of record in the counties in which such oil and gas interests were located from Reeves Lewenthal to the plaintiffs," the complaint says.

The Lewenthals are demanding an accounting of all revenues assigned to them and all moneys that should have been paid to them but weren't. They also wish to know the identity of the persons who received that revenue instead of them.

Concetta lives in South Pasadena, Fla., and Reeves Jr. lives in St. Petersburg. His father had several oil and gas holdings in West Virginia.

Larry Skeen of Charleston law firm Skeen and Skeen is representing the plaintiffs.

Judge Louis Bloom has been assigned the case.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number 06-C-1317