{"id":153665,"date":"2026-01-28T18:59:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153665\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T18:59:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T18:59:21","slug":"west-fresno-farmland-in-assemis-defaulted-loans-case-sold-for-estimated-14m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/153665\/","title":{"rendered":"West Fresno farmland in Assemis\u2019 defaulted loans case sold for estimated $14M"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">About 330 acres of agricultural land in southwest Fresno previously controlled by the Assemi family \u2014 known for farming and housing construction through their Granville Homes firm \u2014 has been sold for an estimated $14 million to a Fresno area jeweler.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Fresno County property records show the sale of the massive piece of land, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/pearsonrealty.com\/brochures\/9826.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Mission Ranch;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Mission Ranch<\/a>, was made Jan. 9 through court-appointed receiver Lance Miller.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The land is part of the thousands of acres across the central San Joaquin Valley that will be sold as part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fresnobee.com\/news\/local\/article294026449.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:multiple breach of contract lawsuits;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">multiple breach of contract lawsuits<\/a> filed by lenders against the Assemis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">At one time, the Assemi brothers, Farid, Farshid and Darius, were among the largest nut growers in the region. But court documents reveal their once-thriving companies, Maricopa Orchards and Touchstone Pistachio Company, began struggling after a failed expansion attempt and other factors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">More than $700 million in loans went unpaid, prompting several major lenders to take legal action to take control of the farming operation. Miller, the court-appointed receiver, is overseeing the sale of the Assemi\u2019s farmland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">A Fresno County deed shows the Mission Ranch land was purchased by Running Stallion Ranch LLC, which was incorporated in late December by Nader Malakan, CEO of Fresno\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/malakan.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Malakan Diamond Company;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Malakan Diamond Company<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Malakan did not respond to The Fresno Bee\u2019s request for comment Tuesday about the sale. Neither did Darius Assemi, the president of Granville Homes who turned Mission Ranch into farmland in 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">But federal court documents filed in December show the Assemis\u2019 farming LLCs and the plaintiff, Federal Agricultural Mortgage Corporation, consented to the then-proposed sale of the land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Mission Ranch is located in southwest Fresno and roughly bound by Church, Whitesbridge, Marks and Hughes avenues. Before the Assemi family started buying the land, it was intended to be part of a large golf course and housing development called Running Horse. That plan failed and the developers behind it were accused of defrauding investors.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">The land languished but drew interest from other developers, including now-President Donald Trump, but none decided to invest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Then the Assemis started buying the residentially-zoned land in 2013, and successfully pushed for the Fresno City Council that year to amend the city\u2019s land code to allow large-scale commercial farming on land zoned for homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"yf-vbsvxt\">Darius Assemi said then the land would be farmed until the market was ready for home construction. But it was listed for sale online after the Assemi\u2019s financial troubles began.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 330 acres of agricultural land in southwest Fresno previously controlled by the Assemi family \u2014 known for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[75651,75652,75650,112,3879,622,114,113,75653,75654,75649],"class_list":["post-153665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-agricultural-land","tag-darius-assemi","tag-federal-agricultural-mortgage-corporation","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-bee","tag-fresno-county","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news","tag-granville-homes","tag-lance-miller","tag-mission-ranch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}