For the second time in eight months, People’s Princess Charitable Foundation Inc. founder Maureen Rorech Dunkel is fighting for control of a Princess Diana gown.

This time, though, most of her royal dress collection is at stake.

Dunkel sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on January 7, a day before a state court hearing was set to decide who should care for five of 13 gowns, which were displayed at Downtown Disney in Orlando through November.

HRH Ventures LLC, managed by Patricia C. Sullivan, sued Dunkel and the nonprofit in Hillsborough Circuit Court in October, claiming they defaulted on $1.5 million in loans made last spring and secured by 13 Princess Diana gowns.

HRH Ventures asked the court for the dresses since Dunkel and the foundation “lack adequate resources to adequately care for these irreplaceable dresses.”

The “Dresses for Humanity” exhibit at Disney didn’t make enough money to cover costs, court records state. Monthly rent was $17,500, plus 25 percent of gross revenue.

Dunkel claims HRH wrested control of the exhibit from her, and that’s why it wasn’t successful. She claims cash assets of $5,000.

Bush Ross PA bankruptcy attorney Jeffrey Warren, who represents Dunkel, said the housing bust and recession have caused Dunkel’s financial problems, as they have for others. But she plans to pay her creditors.

To settle disputes with other lenders, Dunkel recently assigned property in the Enclave at Palma Ceia to the mortgage-holders Bank of Tampa and Omni National Bank (now in FDIC receivership). Bank of Tampa had brought a foreclosure lawsuit in December.

Last month, the court awarded Mercantile Bank possession of the Hanley House, a historic home in the Enclave, Dunkel’s planned South Tampa residential development that never got off the ground.

Mercantile and Omni sued Dunkel’s M&D Development LLC earlier in 2009 for defaulting on mortgages secured by the Enclave.