The Uncle Nearest receiver terminated Fawn Weaver and Keith Weaver from the company effective June 1, 2026, and confirmed in a July 10 court filing that he has received document subpoenas from the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Phillip G. Young, Jr., the receiver appointed by a federal judge in the Eastern District of Tennessee, wrote that he and his team of professionals are working to comply fully and in a timely manner, and that he will continue complying with all subpoenas from governmental entities.
The document is the receiver’s fourth quarterly report, filed in Farm Credit Mid-America, PCA v. Uncle Nearest, Inc. It is nineteen pages, it is public, and it is the closest thing to a full accounting of what has actually been happening inside the company since the Uncle Nearest receiver took control last August.
Start with the terminations, because the language is what matters. Young wrote that the decision to end the Weavers’ employment and involvement with the company was not made lightly, but that it has resulted in significantly less confusion among employees and vendors, and has made business operations significantly smoother. He restricted their access to facilities and systems as of June 1 and returned their personal property to them or their agents. That is a court appointed officer saying, in a federal filing, that removing the founders made the business function better.
Then it gets worse.
The company has not filed a federal income tax return since 2018. The Uncle Nearest receiver flags this as of particular concern and says he is working with tax authorities and outside advisors to fix it. Eight years of unfiled federal returns. He also found material exposure in Tennessee and Delaware from incomplete reporting and unpaid obligations, though he reports those have now been corrected and both states are current.
A substantial number of the company’s financial records from before 2024 were erased from its computer system. According to multiple employees, those records were wiped by a former employee immediately after that person was terminated. The receiver is trying to recover them. He describes the accounting records he inherited as materially unreliable and not usable for accurate financial reporting, citing non-reconciled balances, unusual entries lacking documentation, and improper revenue recognition practices that distort the company’s financial performance.
He also examined related party transactions involving entities owned by the Weavers, reviewed them against external records, and found irregularities. That review is ongoing. Many of the companies inside the receivership have commingled assets and liabilities with entities outside it, which the receiver says has made it very difficult to determine lien priority or separate one company’s debts from another’s.
Based on his investigation so far, the Uncle Nearest receiver states that the estate likely has viable causes of action against a number of parties, including Mike Senzaki, the former chief financial officer, Fawn Weaver, Keith Weaver, and entities those former officers and directors control. He says he will not file until the investigation is complete. To be precise about what the filing does and does not say: the receiver discloses the SDNY and SEC subpoenas, and separately discloses his own potential claims. He does not state who the federal investigations are examining.
Now the detail that tells you everything about how this company was run.
Two restaurant concepts operate at the Nearest Green Distillery, Shelbyville Barrel House and Humble Baron. Both are owned, directly or indirectly and in whole or in part, by Keith Weaver. Both have rental arrears spanning more than a year. On June 1, the same day he fired the Weavers, the receiver formally declared the leases in default and demanded the tenants either bring rent current immediately or vacate. They did neither. Before eviction proceedings could begin, Humble Baron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on June 5. The automatic stay that comes with a bankruptcy filing froze the eviction. The receiver and his counsel are now trying to get relief from that stay so they can remove both tenants.
Read that again. Restaurants tied to the founder’s husband sat inside the company’s own distillery for over a year without paying rent, and when the receiver moved to evict, one of them filed for bankruptcy to keep the doors open.
The financials are grim. The Uncle Nearest receiver states flatly that the company remains insolvent. It is operating at a loss and is only staying alive because of cash infusions from Farm Credit, deep cuts to operating expenses, and professional fees coming in under budget. Farm Credit has now put in $4.5 million. The workforce has been cut by forty people, a 44 percent reduction, with recent cuts hitting sales staff and management. Receivership professional fees have consumed $4.3 million since August. Operating collections for the period to date came in nearly $1.9 million below budget.
The assets are being sold off. The court approved the sale of the company’s Martha’s Vineyard property, but the original buyers walked on July 2, 2026, which the receiver attributes to delays and to continued litigation by Keith and Fawn Weaver over the sale, including after the court had already approved it. He signed a new contract with a third party buyer on July 6 for the same price, $2.595 million, in cash. He has a cash offer for vineyards the estate owns in Cognac, France, though no offer yet on the chateau. He is also evaluating how to liquidate Square One Vodka.
The Weavers have been fighting on every front. They appealed the bankruptcy court’s dismissal of a bankruptcy Fawn Weaver filed on the company’s behalf. They appealed the order refusing to terminate the receivership and expanding it to cover Grant Sidney, Inc., and the Sixth Circuit denied their requests for a stay. They sued Farm Credit for defamation in New York, and that case was nonsuited within the last two weeks. They sued the former CFO in Bedford County, Tennessee. The receiver writes that this litigation has caused significant confusion among employees, vendors and distributors, distracted his team, and threatened both ongoing operations and his ability to maximize the value of the estate. He also says, based on conversations with creditors, vendors, employees, shareholders, consultants and potential investors, that the Weavers’ litigation has further damaged the value of the brand.
Meanwhile the actual business is getting hit from outside too. RNDC, the company’s largest distributor and one of the biggest in the country, massively downsized and sold off a number of markets where it was the exclusive Uncle Nearest distributor to Reyes Beverage Group. The receiver had to steer the company through that handoff at the exact moment it most needed stability. Add a collapsing global spirits market, falling worldwide demand for alcohol, and tariffs biting into international sales.
And yet the Uncle Nearest receiver ends on something close to optimism. He writes that he believes the business and the brand still have a future, that all non-essential assets need to be liquidated fast, and that a sale of the company as a going concern has to close as soon as possible so a buyer with new capital and more disciplined leadership can rehabilitate it. He has a letter of intent with a third party for substantially all of the Uncle Nearest assets and is negotiating the purchase agreement now. He is deciding whether to bring that sale to this court or to file a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy to push it through under Section 363. Either way, he expects to file a notice of sale within thirty to sixty days.
A successful brand succession, he writes, is very close.
