6,000 Investors to Sue Anaheim Developer : Litigation: Payments by Hill Williams have stopped, sparking a class-action suit to account for $80 million.

A class-action lawsuit is expected to be filed today in Orange County Superior Court on behalf of 6,000 Southern Californians who invested about $80 million in an Anaheim Hills company that said it used the money for building houses and condominiums.

“We are asking for an accounting of the funds--we want to know where the heck the money went,” said Tim Cohelan, a San Diego lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the suit.

The lawsuit, Cohelan said, was prompted by Hill Williams Development Corp.’s announcement last month to investors--most of whom live in Orange and San Diego counties--that it had “temporarily” suspended monthly distribution payments.

Donald Williams, the company’s president, blamed the suspension on a slowdown in the real estate market.

Hill Williams raised the capital through four primary limited partnerships, the first of which was formed in 1989 and the last in October, 1992. The company paid investors monthly returns of 15% on minimum investments of $5,000.

Cohelan said that many of the investors are elderly people who relied on the checks as their main source of income. The suit will also name as defendants about 200 brokers who were involved in the transactions, the lawyer said.

Williams could not be reached Tuesday for comment. In January, he said that the suspension of dividend payments did not mean that the investments themselves are at risk.

“It’s not a question as to whether people will ultimately recoup their investments,” he said at the time. “It’s only a question as to how fast they will get paid back.”