Irvine Man, Partner Sue Bank Over Credit Card Deal : Courts: They say they were left jobless when the agreement fell through. Their suit seeks $5.5 million.

An Irvine man and his business partner have sued a South Dakota bank and its chairman, alleging that he reneged on a $5-million agreement to establish a credit card operation.

Florian DeVitis of Irvine and John DeMarco of Lodi, N.J., said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Newark, N.J., that they were induced to quit their jobs with another credit card company to join First Premier Bank.

But, the suit asserts, T. Denny Sanford, chairman of the Sioux Falls bank, backed out of the deal at the last minute, leaving the two men without jobs. DeVitis and DeMarco are seeking $5.5 million in damages from First Premier and Sanford in a lawsuit filed last week.

Sanford’s lawyer, Dave Knudson of Sioux Falls, said that DeMarco and DeVitis are upset over a case of business negotiations gone sour and that the bank owes them nothing.

The lawsuit states that DeMarco and DeVitis were making $10,000 a week at an Illinois firm called Cherry Payment Systems. Through 105 offices, Cherry Payment acted as the bank’s agent in soliciting merchants to process Visa and MasterCard charges through First Premier.

But Sanford wanted to make a change.

“He told us he was having contractual problems” with Cherry Payment, DeVitis said Thursday. “He recruited us to go back to South Dakota to set things up there. We resigned our jobs, and then, just before Christmas, he reneged on the deal.”

DeVitis and DeMarco were to be paid a total of $5 million over five years.

DeMarco said, “We put together a whole program for him, and I heard he hired a guy to do the job for a lot less. He used us and decided not to do it so he didn’t have to pay us the money.”

Knudson said the deal never was completed.

“First Premier Bank had discussions regarding a possible business transaction, but the arrangement was never finalized and an agreement with the transaction was never signed,” Knudson said. “As a result, the bank has no obligations to them.”