ASHLAND, Ky. - Action in Eastern Kentucky district Bankruptcy Court on the Tri-State Mega Festival

and Fair Corporation was delayed again, this time by lack of tax returns.

Bankruptcy Trustee Phaedra Spradlin said she would order Megafest Co-President Casey Kerns to provide tax returns for the defunct corporation. Co-President Rick Clark attended the hearing Monday, and provided a signed copy of his business's bankruptcy petition

as Spradlin had requested last month. But Spradlin also requested copies of the corporate tax returns and Clark told her he didn't have them. Megafest attorney Bill Palmer said there had been a falling out between Clark and Kerns, and that Kerns had the tax returns and had not brought them to the hearing.

"He has all the paperwork, all the receipts," Clark told Spradlin.

"I think you'll probably have to subpoena him; he's not going to cooperate," Palmer said.

Clark said after the hearing that he thinks the reason he and Kerns have fallen out has been the adverse publicity surrounding the failure of the festival. Clark said the bad publicity has also made it impossible for him to find new employment as a landscape designer. Clark said he sold his Coal Grove nursery on Marion Pike and is now looking for a job.

Clark said he would probably file a personal bankruptcy petition within the new few weeks.

Clark asked that a U.S. Marshal at the Carl D. Perkins Federal Building in Ashland walk him outside, because he said he saw Kerns downstairs and was fearful of an encounter with him.

When asked what he had learned from the Megafest debacle, Clark answered, "Don't come to Ironton, it's a depressed market. The economy is bad right now, and that doesn't help."

The Ironton Tribune attempted to contact Kerns at his residence. He could not be reached for comment.