The Mississippi attorney general's office has sued a Cobb County design, engineering and construction management firm for breach of contract and gross negligence in a failed beef processing plant in the northern part of the state.

The Facility Group, based in Smyrna, was hired to complete the Mississippi Beef Processors plant.

Mississippi, which guaranteed the construction loan for the economic development project, is seeking to recover about $9 million for taxpayers and subcontractors of the Facility Group. It asks for unspecified punitive damages, recovery of any improper charges by the construction management firm and monies owed contractors and suppliers over and above the $6.56 million it promised to deliver the completed project for, according to the lawsuit filed last year in Hinds County, Miss.

The suit alleges that as costs soared beyond the contracted amount, the Facility Group "failed to pay costs in excess" of the guaranteed amount while continuing to order labor, materials and equipment and "manipulated the payment process to ensure its own fees were paid, while leaving unpaid bills to contractors and suppliers totaling approximately $1.7 million." The Facility Group recently reached a settlement with nine subcontractors for almost $696,000, the Clarion Ledger newspaper of Jackson reported this week.

Last month, court records were unsealed in a separate 16-count federal grand jury indictment of Robert L. Moultrie, CEO of the Facility Group, and two other top executives in the beef plant project. The indictment alleges illegal campaign contributions to a public official to win the contract, overbilling, false labor charges and leaving contractors unpaid.

In wake of the indictment, Cobb school board members last week ordered auditors to take a closer look at the Facility Group's management of the district's $1.16 billion publicly tax-funded school building program the past 10 years.

Moultrie, Nixon E. Cawood, chief operating officer, and Charles Morehead, executive vice president, pleaded not guilty March 25 on the indictment charges of "frauds and swindles" and conspiracy to defraud the United States in federal court in Jackson. Trial is set for August.