NEW YORK (Reuters) – Four top executives of Thornburg Mortgage (THMRQ.PK) improperly paid themselves handsome bonuses just before the mortgage lender filed for bankruptcy last year, and stole money and ideas from Thornburg to secretly launch a new firm, the bankruptcy trustee in charge of liquidating the lender alleged in a lawsuit.

In an 82-page complaint filed on Tuesday in U.S. bankruptcy court in Baltimore, the trustee, Joel Sher, said the four executives and their outside lawyer and law firm conspired to launch a new company, called SAF Financial, using a strategy created by Thornburg to try to save itself.