Couple and Company at Crux of Mystery

The complex web of money and murder that led to the slaying of Jane Carver is still being sorted out, but police said they believe they know what they will find at the center of that intrigue: Premium Commercial Services Corp., a Huntington Beach finance company that has been linked to three violent crimes in the last year.

The doors to the company’s storefront office on Springdale Street were locked Tuesday and employees weren’t answering questions about the company’s role in the search for Carver’s killer. But this much is known: Paul Alleyne, identified by police as a business associate of the company, faces attempted murder charges for a South County shooting last month, and his arrest led to the tip that broke the Carver case.

And, police say, the Los Angeles electrician being held for Carver’s killing has past business dealings with Premium Commercial.

“The common link was some dealing with Premium Commercial,” according to Christine Murray, an Orange County sheriff’s homicide investigator.

Police announced Tuesday that Carver was killed because she was mistaken for someone else by a hired killer. One source said the intended target might have been a woman who had sued Premium Commercial in a bitter fight over her Fountain Valley home, not far from Carver’s house.

The 13-year-old company has been involved in dozens of other lawsuits and one company official has also been involved in a criminal case, records show.

The company’s founding president was Coleman Allen, who died recently after a heart attack. Allen pleaded no contest to a March 1995 assault charge in Signal Hill and got 36 months’ probation for beating a borrower with a pipe wrench during a business meeting, according to police in that city.

“Basically, we found out [Allen] was a loan shark and this guy owed him money,” Signal Hill police spokesman Pete Hunter said Tuesday.

A detective who investigated the assault case, which was originally charged as an attempted murder, said the incident started Signal Hill police on a related investigation, but he would not be specific.

Premium Commercial “is within the scope of that investigation,” according to Signal Hill Police Sgt. James Peterson.

Premium Commercial is a financial services company that primarily lends to tiny, fledgling businesses. The firm also leases various types of equipment, including medical equipment to doctors, a former lawyer for the company said.

“They did equipment leasing, car leasing, all types of financial services, mostly for companies,” said Barry Schlom, a Beverly Hills attorney who said he represented Premium Commercial Services Corp. several years ago when it still had an office in Van Nuys. “I don’t remember them dealing with consumer loans.”

Premium Commercial has been involved in 31 lawsuits in Orange County Superior Court since 1991, most of them as a plaintiff, court records show.

People who have done business with Premium Commercial described it Tuesday as a lender for small companies strapped for cash. Typically, Premium Commercial gives them loans based on invoices and payments they expected to receive on work for large companies that were often slow in paying.

One company, Tech-Star Co. in Anaheim, contracted with the lender to get payments upfront for work the company performed for major defense firms.

“Premium nearly tore my business apart,” said Frank T. Jackson, president of Tech-Star, a company that sued Premium Commercial in the early 1990s.

The suit claimed that Premium Commercial sent him handwritten statements each month that appeared to have interest being calculated improperly.

Jackson claims that during a deposition in Riverside with Allen, the president of Premium Commercial threatened to kill him.

“He told my attorney he wanted to kill me,” Jackson said. “So I was nervous for my life. My lawyer told me to take precautions. At the time, I was scared, my wife was scared.”

“He was so intimidating,” Jackson said. “He was a person who could twist an arm.” Some saw Allen’s antics as the bluster of an ambitious businessman.

“He just looked like a very self-confident, highfalutin’ businessman who wanted to play hardball,” said Scott Campbell, a Los Angeles attorney who represents an out-of-state bank, North Fork Bank.

The North Fork Bank in New York state sued Premium Commercial in 1994 in a dispute over which company had the right to collect money from a borrower, JBL Sound Studios Inc. in New York City. JBL was owned by an investment group led by record production company executive Barry Skolnik, who was found shot to death in January in Hollywood.

Times staff writer Marla Dickerson contributed to this story.