Nonpayment lawsuits piling up against Toor Farming

Robby Robinson, a beekeeper from Leonard, Texas, threw some clothes in his back pack, rustled up some food, kissed his wife goodbye early one October morning and headed to California. His goal was to ask Bitta Toor why he hadn’t been paid for his services.

“I just wanted to talk to him face to face. I have a family to feed and he promised to pay off his debt in September,” he said.

Bitta, also known as Santokh Singh Toor, manages Toor Farming, LLC and other farming entities in the Central Valley along with his son Ekam, brother Arpinder, and several other family members.

Toor Farming contracted with Maksim’s Apiaries, a broker of bee keepers, in December of 2023 for 5,066 hives. The bill for the hives was $861,220.00 and they were delivered in March of 2024.

According to the lawsuit, Toor Farming has only paid half the bill and has an outstanding balance with Maksim of $430,610.00, a number that is growing every day due to late fees and legal costs.

Maksim’s Apiaries sent a letter asking for payment through his lawyer in June and Bitta Toor responded by threatening to drag the legal process out for two years, Robinson claims. He also claims that Toor promised that if the debt was left out of the courts, his bill would be paid in full, with interest and associated costs, in September.

When Toor allegedly ignored follow up texts and calls in late August, Maksim’s sent a final demand letter in September and followed through with a suit in October.

That’s when Robinson felt he needed to pay the Toor family a visit. He walked up to the gates guarding the Toor home on the morning of October 24 and noticed the opulence of the home.

“I thought I had arrived at the Taj Mahal,” he said.

“We depend on this income for our family expenses. It seems like such a small part of Bitta’s world and I can’t understand why he wouldn’t just pay it and move on,” he said.

A short investigation revealed that the Toors are not just facing a lawsuit filed by beekeepers, but they’re also facing down four others concerning unpaid bills.

Robby Robinson was going to have to get in line.

The Lawsuits

Five civil lawsuits from July to October of this year have been filed against Toor Farming – and there may be more to come.

Four are for breach of contract ranging from $145,000 to $460,000 and a fifth lawsuit alleges fraud claiming damages of $15 million.

At the same time, Toor Farming, LLC has approximately $1m of farm equipment for sale on the Ag Source Magazine website.

The lawsuit alleging fraud was filed in July.

The plaintiff, Ron J. Cook from Fresno, is suing Toor Farming, Custom Almonds, AST Farms, AKT Farms, Santokh S. Toor, and Arpinder K. Toor for breach of contract and for fraud. Records with the California Secretary of State show all of the companies named as defendants list Santokh S. Toor as a “manager or member”.

Cook claims that in 2020, Arpinder and Santokh, also known as Bitta, requested that Cook invest in a 2,400 acre ranch located at Highway 43 and Avenue 56 in Tulare County “on a 50% Defendants and 50% Plaintiff basis.”

In August 2020, the lawsuit claims the three entered into a written agreement “Regarding Coordination Of Financial Responsibility And Indemnity.”

The complaint states, “Defendants, and each of them, breached the Agreement by refusing to take the required actions to transfer the Property identified in the Agreement from the Trust to Prosperity Farm 4356. As a result of Defendants’ breach of the contract, Plaintiff has been damaged including lost benefits he would have acquired had Defendants complied with the terms of the Agreement in an amount presently unknown, however, Plaintiff is informed and believes his damages exceed 15 million dollars.”

The next case, filed September 11 by Ag-Seeds Unlimited against Toor Farming, is for an unpaid bill of $271,280.00.

Lopez and Sons, a labor contractor in Stockton, filed suit October 10, for an unpaid bill of $243,774.48.

Moody Walnut Dryer, Inc. filed suit on October 25 for unpaid bills of $145,470.56.

One of the lawyers involved in suing the Toors said their suit was still out on service, meaning the Toor family had not yet been served. The same may be true for several of the other recently filed suits.

The lawyer said it is not uncommon for Defendants to avoid being served but hoped this would not be the case. It wasn’t clear if the Toor family had retained a lawyer.

After being served the Toors have 30 days to respond.

Robinson confronts the Toors

When Robinson arrived at the Toor home he saw a heraldic emblem with the initials BT on the gates so he  knew he was at the right place.

“The gates were closed but several people were outside so I called out to them and stated I was there because of the unpaid pollination fee,” he said.

The people outside ignored him so Robinson made a large sign saying, “Bitta is a deadbeat” on one side and “Pay for the bees” on the other.

He wanted the Toors to know that when a big corporate farm doesn’t pay their bills, small family farms go hungry.

“It was an insane amount of hard work and considerable expense to get the bees in shape for pollination and deliver them on time,” said Robinson.

Robinson claims that Bitta’s son, Ekam — not named in the lawsuit, though he plays a part in the farming operations — came outside and said, “we’re not going to pay you, you lazy beggar.”

Robinson claims he laughed about the whole non-payment situation.

Walking across the street, Robinson held up his sign and got a few thumbs up from passers-by. He alleges that in response, Ekam got in a Polaris Ranger, a utility vehicle (UTV) and drove circles around Robinson.

“He had a really strong smell of marijuana and seemed to be having trouble operating the vehicle almost being hit by cars a few times,” said Robinson.

Robinson believes Ekam mistook him for Maksim Chernyakov, who filed the lawsuit on the bee keepers’ behalf.

“The UTV had huge speakers in the back blasting unspeakable sexual vulgarities about Heather, Maksim Chernyakov’s wife,” Robinson said. He also claimed that Ekam also yelled out vulgarities about a woman named Brie who he thought might be Chernyakov’s daughter.

“He actually went to the trouble of making these awful recordings. ‘Heather sucks my c**k!’ and ‘Heather swallows my c*m!’,” Robinson claimed. “He said these things verbally and played the recordings over the speakers for quite some time and seemed disappointed that I was not affected by it.”

A Tulare County Sheriff’s deputy arrived and identified himself as I. Jimenez, Robinson said. He told the deputy that he did not trespass and explained to the deputy he was there for an unpaid debt.

According to Robinson, Jimenez was unmoved and repeated five or more times, “unfortunately I can’t arrest you.”

The deputy then got into his patrol car and, Robinson alleges, ran over his backpack in front of him.

“I was really taken aback by the deputy’s behavior. It was really uncalled for. Fortunately the only casualty was my chicken salad dinner and water,” he said.

As the sun started to set Robinson decided to head back to the bus stop,

“Close to sunset I started leaving and he [Ekam] followed me on the ranger. I suppose he was trying to intimidate me but when I would turn and face him or try to approach he would run away,” Robinson said. He claimed that the vehicle had no lights, or that the lights were not turned on, and that he was almost hit multiple times.

“I don’t think he had his wits about him with all the weed. It stunk to high heaven every time he passed me,” Robinson said.

Robinson claims the altercation ended after a Visalia Police Officer pulled alongside Robinson and allegedly spoke to Ekam regarding riding the UTV, which isn’t street legal. It was dark by then and Robinson couldn’t see the exchange, but he’s wondered since then about the outcome.

“If you were smoking weed and driving a buggy in Texas you’d still be in jail,” he said.