The U.S. Department of Labor has sued Windham business owner Timothy Seavey, charging that he illegally withheld more than $16,000 in employee contributions from his store’s employee pension benefit plan.

The civil action, filed by trial attorney Celeste Moran at U.S. District Court in Portland on Dec. 17, argues that Seavey, the co-owner of Seavey’s Furniture & Appliance on 421 Roosevelt Trail and a second branch in Scarborough, violated the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, a 40-year-old federal law that regulates voluntarily established pension plans administered by private corporations. The law gives pension participants the right to sue for breaches of fiduciary duty.

According to the complaint, from September 2009 to March 2011 Seavey withheld a total of $16,015 in employee contributions to the furniture store’s Individual Retirement Account employee pension benefit plan, which is funded by employee contributions withheld from paychecks and matched by employer contributions. Since Seavey has not yet forwarded the $16,015 in employee contributions into the pension plan, he has failed to discharge his “fiduciary duty” under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, according to the complaint.

The complaint calls on the District Court to permanently ban Seavey from serving as fiduciary to any plan covered by the Employment Retirement Income Security Act. It also calls on Seavey to return the withheld money to the pension plan, as well as legal costs, lost earnings and interest.

In a statement, Seavey, who lives in Windham, said he did not dispute the “basic premise” of the complaint, although he said it did not tell the “whole story.”

“I’m not disputing the facts, other than a couple of details,” he said.

Seavey said his failure to transfer the employee contributions into the pension plan was an “oversight” that was not noticed for six months. Once the error was discovered, Seavey said, the company was too far behind on its fund payments to return the money.

“By then the recession was in full swing,” Seavey said.

Seavey said he then canceled the plan and stopped accepting employee contributions.

The complaint does not discuss the details of the incident. U.S. Department of Labor spokesman Ted Fitzgerald said the civil complaint “does not characterize or speak to motive.”

“The complaint states that Mr. Seavey, as the plan’s sole decision maker and the only individual to transmit payment funds, had a fiduciary duty under (the law) to forward the withheld employee contributions funds to the plan,” Fitzgerald said. “The complaint states that he violated his fiduciary responsibility by not doing so.”

According to court documents, Seavey’s Furniture & Appliance received a civil action summons on Dec. 18, warning that Seavey had 21 days to respond to attorney Moran. On Jan. 5, the department publicized the complaint in a press release.

Seavey said he first heard about the complaint from newspaper reporters this week, although he had been in touch with a federal labor investigator in September 2012.

“I responded to this matter over two years ago, when the investigator told me, ‘We will be in touch,’” Seavey said. “I never had any direct communication from them as to how to proceed since then.”

Seavey said he would “eventually” rectify the situation.

“Promises were made, and I intend on living up to them,” he said. “Everyone has gone through a lot the last seven or eight years. Things are definitely better, but we all have a great deal of catching up to do.”