Donnelly, ID – A 32-year-old Utah investor who filed bankruptcy in 2008 seems an unlikely savior to rescue Idaho’s Tamarack ski resort from under a $300 million debt load.nJames Thomas “J.T.” Bramlette is nonetheless undeterred. He’s leading a group of unnamed investors to purchase Tamarack out of bankruptcy.

Bramlette saw his lavish lifestyle, which was financed by debt and included a $5.3 million Gulfstream III private jet and a $450,000 Mercedes-Benz come screeching to a halt in 2008. He still faces a 2008 trial date in a lawsuit filed by investors who say that they were duped by inflated real estate values in another Idaho development, Teton Springs in the town of Victor.

Bramlette emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and is now leading investors in Salt Lake City-based Pelorus Group, who have entered an undisclosed bid to purchase Tamarack. The group already purchased Tamarack’s conference center in July.

Tamarack, which first opened in 2004 as the newest built-from-scratch ski resort in the U.S., ceased operations in 2009 after its owners defaulted on a line of credit extended by numerous lenders, including Credit Suisse. Its base village sits largely unfinished near Donnelly, Idaho.

The Tamarack Municipal Association, a group of homeowners at the resort, is also in discussions with the bankruptcy court and the State of Idaho, seeking approval of their plan to operate the West Mountain portion of the ski area four days a week this winter, as Bank of America’s leasing unit is seeking to repossess two chairlifts serving the remainder of the resort.