A judge in Golden is refusing to restore an entrepreneur to CEO of the e-commerce companies that he gifted to his four sons after they fired him following his divorce from their mother.
Judge Christopher Rhamey has also blocked the businessman, Kevin Semcken, from selling a warehouse along Interstate 70 in Wheat Ridge until he can determine whether the sons own that, too. Rhamey has suggested he will appoint a receiver for the property instead.
“Sorry if I get short with people,” he said during a testy hearing Nov. 20. “I’m just frustrated that we’re here, I think we all are. I see a family and I want what is best for that family.”
Semcken, 66, has four sons, three of whom he is suing for kicking him out of Certified Brands and Electronics Row, resale companies that he has lent $11 million to by his count. He says his sons are refusing to repay those loans or pay rent at his warehouse.
“I raised them and I have always paid for everything,” Semcken testified during last month’s hearing. “I started the companies after they asked me to help them start up their companies. They grew up in my companies. I’ve started 40 companies over the last 30 years.”
“I am the only one in the family who has put a dime into those companies. Not one of them ever invested a dime in these companies. I am the only financial support they have had.”
But Semcken’s sons — Michael, Matthew, Jackson and Daniel Semcken — say he gave them the warehouse at 10601 N. I-70 Frontage Road in Wheat Ridge and was a mere employee of their companies when they rightly fired him Oct. 1 for wasting company funds.
“He then said that he would disparage us and harass us and damage us — our companies, us personally and our in-laws,” Jackson Semcken testified about his father Nov. 20.
Kimberly Younger, an accountant for Certified Brands and Electronics Row who is respected by Kevin Semcken as well as his sons, testified that the elder Semcken did use company funds to pay alimony to his ex-wife as well as for golf packages, ski passes and an auto loan.
“The way this has been structured by the family is not normal, because it is a family business,” the judge noted. “I understand that but it is, for both attorneys, a complete disaster.
“I understand that’s how this has operated, but the idea of that working over the next year is a falsity,” he said. “It’s not going to work over the next year. That’s never going to work.”
At the hearing, Kevin Semcken asked the judge to restore him as CEO and chairman of the two electronics companies and restore his authority over their finances. Rhamey refused.
“Despite his own self-serving testimony, the plaintiff failed to present any evidence establishing that he was anything other than an at-will employee,” the judge wrote Nov. 24.
Semcken’s sons, meanwhile, asked the judge to bar their father from the electronics businesses as well as from Semcken Commercial, which owns the Wheat Ridge warehouse. Rhamey agreed the father has no say over the retailers but refused to give any of the Semckens control of 10601 N. I-70 Frontage Road, since ownership is in dispute and will need to be decided by a jury.
Instead, the judge has asked all Semckens who he should name as a receiver for the real estate. Attorneys for the two sides — Reid Allred of Cambridge Law for the father, Kit Davlin of Robinson & Henry for the sons — have until Dec. 5 to craft a short list of names.
Last month’s daylong hearing was a family affair, with Kevin Semcken, two of his sons and his ex-wife testifying. The elder Semcken apologized to Rhamey on several occasions for getting worked up, noting the emotional strain this situation has caused. Emails between the Semckens that have been filed as exhibits in the case also show his emotions riding high.
“I’m tired of being mistreated and disrespected,” he emailed his offspring in October 2024, as he planned to give them the warehouse. “I am tired of watching the four of you mistreat each other. I hope this gift and the success of your companies help you to grow up and appreciate all of the gifts you have all been given along the way and, most importantly, the gift of family.”
“For your entire lives, my sons have always been my No. 1 priority,” he wrote a year later, just before suing. “I have been an active part of your lives to help ensure that you grew up to be good people. After nine years of disrespect and verbal abuse, with the last three months being extreme, it doesn’t look like I have been a success. And there is no exception among you.”
Read more from our partner, BusinessDen.
Get more business news by signing up for our Economy Now newsletter.