Byrd Warlick discovered $875,084 in three additional accounts. The money, which employees of Spartan International Inc. paid into the accounts, could be used to pay part of the $1.5 million in unpaid medical claims that employees are stuck with, Mr. Warlick said.

Mr. Warlick was appointed trustee to restart the long-term disability checks to disabled employees who were cut off after November because the insurance company that had been disbursing the checks had not been reimbursed by Spartan since the plants closed.

Former King Mill manager Frank Rachels blames Spartan's upper management and its major creditor General Electric Capital Corp. for the abandoned accounts.

"What we've seen with King Mill and the other Spartan mills is something similar to Enron," he said. "The management and the big lenders are concerned about themselves, not about the working man. When the mills closed, GE scrambled for assets, and management disappeared."

Mr. Rachels was forced to sell his home in Augusta's hill section after his disability checks stopped, he said.

Telephone messages left on GE spokesman Ned Reynolds' voice mail Tuesday and Wednesday seeking the company's response were not returned.

In May, Spartan management turned over keys of the facility on Goodrich Street to GE Capital, forcing the closure of five plants in three states and throwing about 1,200 employees out of work with no notice and no medical coverage. The company was $35 million in debt.

GE Capital then asked a federal judge to appoint a receiver, who began disposing of the assets and turning the money over to GE Capital until a group of former King Mill employees filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition. The case is now in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in South Carolina, where the trustee discovered the long-term disability account and determined that it was not part of the bankruptcy estate.

Mr. Rachels and two other disabled King Mill employees filed suit in federal court in Augusta seeking to have payments from the account resumed.

Mr. Warlick hopes to get the checks in the mail this week, but it will take some time to sort out who should be paid from the other funds, he said.

The recently discovered accounts raise questions about Spartan's Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which company officials said is worthless. In 1998, assets totaled $21.5 million. Net assets totaled $11.98 million, according to an independent auditors' report.

Most of the assets were in company stock, but there were many common stocks and corporate bonds in the plan at the end of 1998, including stocks of Coca Cola Co., Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Eastman Kodak and Nationsbank Corp. Those assets might have been sold to pay debts, but there has been no accounting for what happened to them, according to the employees' lawyers.

Former King Mill mechanic Ronald Walker had about $40,000 in Spartan's stock-ownership plan. Mr. Walker, 62, worked at the mill almost 40 years and has not found another job. His wife, Cheryl, cannot work because of multiple health problems. They say they are being pushed toward bankruptcy.

They postponed filing until they received notice the lender would foreclose on their home March 22, Mrs. Walker said.

"We didn't want to file bankruptcy, but it's the only way we can keep our house," she said.

Reach Sylvia Cooper at (706) 823-3228 or sylviaco@augustachronicle.com.