Business

Deepak Chopra’s former partner has history of business failures

Before Jim Walsh got on the bad side of new age health guru Deepak Chopra, he fancied himself as a chocolate mogul.

Walsh, who is trying to wrest control of $5 million earmarked for a Chopra-related nonprofit, according to a lawsuit filed this week, tried decades ago to set up a cocoa plantation in Hawaii in partnership with Hershey’s, sources told The Post.

But the project flopped and Hershey’s sued Walsh, sources added.

Eventually it was settled, a person familiar with the case said.

Among folks in the Hawaii chocolate-making community, where Walsh once worked, the 62-year-old is known as a smooth talker with a string of failed businesses and debts, sources told The Post.

Chopra must feel the same way.

The best-selling author and motivational speaker sued Walsh on Wednesday, charging him with attempting to gain control of the $5 million donation — and with taking $150,000 to set up a non-profit, among other ventures.

Chopra said he gave Walsh the money before learning of his “trail of unsuccessful, abandoned or failed companies and projects.”

Chopra is also seeking to get back his $150,000.

The $5 million allegedly promised in August by software giant SAP was supposed to go for work in consciousness.

A spokesman for SAP declined to comment.

Walsh’s chocolate company, Hawaiian Vintage Chocolates, later got into trouble with a state department of agriculture for claiming its chocolate came from Hawaiian beans.

The company currently trades as a penny stock.

“Walsh’s legacy is, he did bring in some good plant material [to Hawaii.] He was sort of like a Johnny Appleseed,” said H.C. “Skip” Bittenbender, who studies the cacao industry in Hawaii.

“But he had some spectacular failures here,” said Bittenbender, who described Walsh as a “smooth talker.”

It’s not just chocolatiers who feel this way.

“I would agree with Deepak on his views about Walsh,” said Richard Davidson, a psychology professor with the University of Wisconsin who was promised $550,000 by Walsh in 2010 to study a drug-free alternative to treat attention-deficit disorder.

“The commitment never came through,” Davidson said of the money.

Walsh declined to comment.