Misc Aquatera

[Jdarg]

What is the deal with the Walton County folks?

What do you mean?

 

[Babyblue]

What do you mean?

Shelly posted this ""Donald Trump has boasted that his partnership with SimDag is more than a licensing or marketing arrangement," the suit states.

Long said his clients, Louis Ricci and Joe Shultz, both of Walton County , near Pensacola, have since learned that the developers paid the real estate mogul for the naming rights of the building."

 

[SHELLY]

What is the deal with the Walton County folks?

They're the protagonists of the headline story.


.

 

[Babyblue]

Oh.

 

[TooFarTampa]

They're the protagonists of the headline story.


.

What I'm trying to figure out is what they were doing chasing real estate in Tampa. Weren't there plenty of prettier projects in SoWal?

Thanks for the article -- somehow I had missed the latest in this "project." The Trump Tower is the most high-profile troubled development but there are SO many others. A number of condos won't be built and many planned apartment-to-condo conversions will not be done after all. Thankfully.

Even the most bulletproof neighborhoods are feeling it. About a year ago, a woman a couple of blocks away decided to convert her eight-lot "estate" in the fancy old-money golf course neighborhood into a small development. :shock: She had her 1920s brick Tudor moved to a corner of the huge lot and big signs immediately went up advertising her home and seven others in the $1-million to $2-million range. I guess she didn't realize that people did not want to overpay so they could be squeezed into the edge of the development along a fairly busy road. The big signs are down and advertising is now non-existent, and the old house looks forlorn and unrepaired in the corner, with plywood all over it. I am sure the neighbors are .

 

[SHELLY]

And the hits just keep on coming folks. Here's the story of another "Investulators Gone Wild" story from Florida

For One Condo Developer,
Boom Ends With Arrest
By Alex Frangos
From The Wall Street Journal Online

The condominium boom that ended last year made a lot of developers very rich. Aleem Hussain, a journeyman property salesman with a winsome personality, wanted to be one of them.

He formed his real-estate company in 2004, calling it Main Street USA, after a nearby Disney World attraction. He bought a complex of 27 aging, two-story apartment houses in Orlando and set out to convert them into condos. His timing looked favorable. That year, for the first time, the average price of a condo in the U.S. exceeded that of a single-family home, and in the Orlando area, condo and house prices jumped 15%.

But not much has gone as planned for Mr. Hussain, 42 years old, nor has it for his hundreds of investors, who include a bunch of local sheriff's deputies. Today, Mr. Hussain's company is being liquidated by a federal bankruptcy court, and he is residing in the Seminole County jail, charged with 23 counts of federal mail and wire fraud.

Mr. Hussain's rise and fall illustrates one of the hazards of a frothy property market: inexperienced developers get in over their heads and drag unsophisticated investors down with them. "Schoolteachers, cops, doctors, priests, everyone thought they were Donald Trump," says Lewis Freeman, the court-appointed trustee administering Main Street's bankruptcy proceeding. Mr. Hussain's company, he contends, was a "microcosm of the total market. You had a lot of unqualified people getting easy money and able to go into businesses in which they didn't know what they were doing."

.....LINK TO STORY

 

[SHELLY]

If the market had not collapsed they would have been called brilliant. When things go south it is called "Fraud"

BB,
In the story in the post above, it appears Mr Hussain's lawyers feel the same way:

------------------

"In October, Mr. Hussain rented a car and drove to Atlanta to catch a flight to Costa Rica. U.S. Marshals, alerted by federal investigators in Orlando, met him at the gate and arrested him.

A federal grand jury indicted him on 23 counts of mail and wire fraud. Among the accusations: He falsely represented to investors that their money would be kept in the REIT, when in reality there was no REIT and the money sat in a checking account. And he told investors their dividend payments came from investment profits, when he actually was paying them from money invested by others.

Investigators also say Main Street sold condos at inflated prices to Mr. Hussain's friends or relatives to generate misleading appraisals that justified the higher prices paid by outside buyers.

Mr. Hussain's lawyer, Mr. Lenihan, says his client wasn't trying to flee the country, but was going to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for business and charity purposes. He argues that prosecutors have singled out his client, in part because of his Middle Eastern sounding name, when others at the company were also responsible. "This thing was not set up as a scheme to defraud people," he says. "This is what happens to good people with a good idea and lousy timing who get into trouble." Mr. Hussain's trial is scheduled for April.

 

[beachbumguy]

trump case - is this the same louis ricci as below?

U.S. Department of Justice
United States Attorney
Western District of Tennessee
800 Federal Office Building
Ph: (901) 544-4231
Memphis, Tennessee 38103
Fax: (901) 544-4230
TTY: (901) 544-3054
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
(November 13, 2001)
CONTACT: Leigh Ann Jordan
(901) 544-4231
FORMER AMERICAN NATIONAL MORTGAGE EMPLOYEE PLEADS GUILTY
Terrell L. Harris, United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee,
announced today that Norman Louis Ricci, Jr., entered a guilty plea to a criminal
information filed in United States District Court in Memphis, Tennessee. The one-count
information filed by the United States Attorneys Office charged that beginning on or
about May 10, 1998, and continuing sometime in April 2000, Ricci formerly employed at
American National Mortgage, Inc. (ANM) conspired with others to violate federal mail,
wire and bank fraud statutes. According to the information, Ricci was employed at
ANM from approximately December 1993 until approximately February 2000, and in
early 1999, he became president and part owner of Sugar Beach, LLC. The information
alleges that conspirators sought to enrich themselves and minimize losses to ANM.
According to the information the conspirators accomplished the objects of the
conspiracy by selling mortgage loans to investors knowing that the values of
properties securing the loans were falsely inflated and that the loan files contained
false and fraudulent loan underwriting documents and HUD-1s. In furtherance of the
conspiracy, the information alleges that ?between May 10, 1998, and July 1998, Ricci
discussed with other conspirators the need to sell certain loans funded through ANM?s
warehouse line of credit and the fact that some investors were raising questions about
the validity of appraisals of the properties securing the loans.? The information further
alleges that in ?July 1998, Ricci encouraged another conspirator to engage in property
?flips? for the purpose of creating false comparable sales prices to justify false and
fraudulent appraisals of properties securing the loans ANM needed to sell.? The
information also alleges that in February and March 2000, Ricci and other conspirators
caused the making of mortgage loans to finance the purchase of two properties in
Germantown, Tennessee, knowing that false and fraudulent loan underwriting
documents and HUD-1s were being used in support of the loans.
***MORE***
[FONT=arial,sans-serif]Page 2[/FONT]
Among the obligations imposed upon Ricci under the terms of a written plea
agreement filed by the United States, Ricci will continue to provide ?complete and
truthful information? and ?to testify completely and truthfully? at future
proceedings. If Ricci fulfills all of his obligations under the terms of the
agreement, the United States will recommend a sentence of imprisonment not to
exceed 12 months. The United States also agreed not to bring other charges
against Ricci arising from his participation in the conspiracy described in the
information. The maximum penalty Ricci could face for a violation of the Federal
conspiracy statute (Title 18, United States Code, Section 371) is five years
imprisonment and a $250,000 fine.
The matter is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Carroll Andre? and
William Clabault of the Criminal Division of the United States Department of
Justice. The matter is being investigated by the Memphis Division of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the Memphis Field Office of the United States Postal
Inspection Service, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban
Development Office of Inspector General.
# # # #

 

[Babyblue]

BB,
In the story in the post above, it appears Mr Hussain's lawyers feel the same way:

------------------

"In October, Mr. Hussain rented a car and drove to Atlanta to catch a flight to Costa Rica. U.S. Marshals, alerted by federal investigators in Orlando, met him at the gate and arrested him.

A federal grand jury indicted him on 23 counts of mail and wire fraud. Among the accusations: He falsely represented to investors that their money would be kept in the REIT, when in reality there was no REIT and the money sat in a checking account. And he told investors their dividend payments came from investment profits, when he actually was paying them from money invested by others.

Investigators also say Main Street sold condos at inflated prices to Mr. Hussain's friends or relatives to generate misleading appraisals that justified the higher prices paid by outside buyers.

Mr. Hussain's lawyer, Mr. Lenihan, says his client wasn't trying to flee the country, but was going to Costa Rica and Nicaragua for business and charity purposes. He argues that prosecutors have singled out his client, in part because of his Middle Eastern sounding name, when others at the company were also responsible. "This thing was not set up as a scheme to defraud people," he says. "This is what happens to good people with a good idea and lousy timing who get into trouble." Mr. Hussain's trial is scheduled for April.

Yeap..

 

[SHELLY]

Yeap..

For a guy who's on the chit list of over 10 Orange County Sheriffs Deputies...."trouble" might not be the most appropriate word to describe his situation.

.