by Gregory Weaver, Fresnoland
June 26, 2026
The former chief financial officer of Granville Homes has accused prominent Fresno developer Darius Assemi of raiding his own company — diverting as much as $16 million in corporate cash to secretly buy back a ranch his family had lost to its creditors, using a longtime business associate as a front to keep his name off of public land records.
In a complaint filed June 16 in Fresno County Superior Court, Ryan Toncheff says Assemi fired him this month after he refused to certify financial statements he believed were false and warned that Granville Homes — the privately held homebuilder at the heart of the Assemi family’s collapsing business empire — was insolvent.
“He didn’t want…