Saturday, September 19, 2009

Tax evasion part of city's largest real estate deal?

From the NY Post:

Manhattan prosecutors said today they are investigating a Hong Kong-based consortium that joined Donald Trump in what was at the time the city's largest-ever residential real estate sale - the $1.76 billion Riverside South project on Manhattan's West Side.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said the consortium, Hudson Waterfront Associates, evaded taxes by having the buyers, developers Extell and the Carlyle Group, pay a $17 million finder's fee to a British Virgin Islands-based shell corporation.

The 2005 Riverside South deal involved 77 acres of waterfront real estate on Manhattan's West Side that is being developed into luxury condos.

Trump is not a subject of the investigation. The Trump Organization referred calls about Riverside South to attorney Jay Goldberg, who did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

No representative for Hudson Waterfront Associates could be reached. A Manhattan phone number for the consortium was disconnected.

There was one arrest in connection with the deal Thursday.

Barry Gross, 45, of Lawrence, on Long Island, was charged with evading New York state taxes on a $1 million bonus he received for acting as an intermediary in the sale.

Prosecutors said Gross, who was project director for Hudson Waterfront Associates, asked his bosses in Hong Kong to pay his $1 million bonus to a shell corporation he controlled called Itamar Capital.


Photo from horizonr

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Look more local DA Morgenthau...at the "Seven Giants" realty firm too!

Are they hooked up with John Liu's parents?

Did they own the sweat shop building that Liu claims to have worked in as a little boy?

The "Seven Giants" might be the key to a lot more than everybody thinks!

Reopen the case of Joseph Liu!