Stenger and Quiros Ousted from Management of Jay Peak and Burke

[yotefan]

Funny, he calls Bill Kelly a "shithead" in the Q Empire piece.

 

[River19]

So, I've read a good number of pages of that lovely deposition from 2014.

Let's state first that I work for a very large corporation currently and have worked for other smaller ($500M/yr revenue) companies along the way. I've met many successful business folks over the years and in reading this deposition, in my humble opinion, this man is not sophisticated enough to build a 9 figure business empire without something shady going on.

The man can't even explain how his "company/business" makes money, even in the simplest terms:

"Q Okay. Could you take me through the
different types of fees you would be entitled to
for each project?

A I cannot give all of the details. I
know of the construction fees, supervision fees,
architectural fees, permitting fees, a lot of
fees."

There isn't a business owner in the world that can't clearly explain how their company makes money if they are truly in business. Of course he is trying to not say "I just took what I wanted of the money".....


I'm even giving him the benefit of the doubt as far as the poor English is concerned. The referring to himself in the 3rd person is also an interesting quirk.

I'm honestly not sure how the SEC lawyers kept a straight face during this. I can't imagine what his lawyer was thinking.

Reading the latest response and plea from Q in the BFP rings hollow on someone that read this whole mess.

 

[River19]

So, I've read a good number of pages of that lovely deposition from 2014.

Let's state first that I work for a very large corporation currently and have worked for other smaller ($500M/yr revenue) companies along the way. I've met many successful business folks over the years and in reading this deposition, in my humble opinion, this man is not sophisticated enough to build a 9 figure business empire without something shady going on.

The man can't even explain how his "company/business" makes money, even in the simplest terms:

"Q Okay. Could you take me through the
different types of fees you would be entitled to
for each project?

A I cannot give all of the details. I
know of the construction fees, supervision fees,
architectural fees, permitting fees, a lot of
fees."

There isn't a business owner in the world that can't clearly explain how their company makes money if they are truly in business. Of course he is trying to not say "I just took what I wanted of the money".....


I'm even giving him the benefit of the doubt as far as the poor English is concerned. The referring to himself in the 3rd person is also an interesting quirk.

I'm honestly not sure how the SEC lawyers kept a straight face during this. I can't imagine what his lawyer was thinking.

Reading the latest response and plea from Q in the BFP rings hollow on someone that read this whole mess.

 

[VTKilarney]

I think that his naivety was on purpose. It's clear that his strategy is to blame everyone else but himself.

I think that he knows EXACTLY what was going on.

 

[River19]

I think that his naivety was on purpose. It's clear that his strategy is to blame everyone else but himself.

I think that he knows EXACTLY what was going on.

I think I agree with you. I believe he knew exactly what was happening and what he was doing from the standpoint of running a fraudulent enterprise/ponzi scheme. What I don't believe is that he comes across as someone sophisticated enough to run a 9 figure operation above board.


This whole "one window system" makes me laugh the way he explains it.

It's like Madoff saying something like "all these investments are really confusing so I just liquidated them all and put the money in my checking account so it was easier to control and keep track of".....

 

[VTKilarney]

The "one window system" was a pretty pathetic attempt at explaining his shenanigans. I wonder what William Kelly is thinking right now. It's quite clear that Quiros is willing to have Kelly be the fall guy. I guess that's what you get for standing by Quiros for all of these years.

 

[VTKilarney]

Quiros has asked the court to unfreeze his assets so he can pay his attorney and his basic living expenses.

He puts his net worth at approximately $200 million.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/.../19/ariel-quiros-unfreeze-my-assets/83257644/

 

[thetrailboss]

Quiros has asked the court to unfreeze his assets so he can pay his attorney and his basic living expenses.

He puts his net worth at approximately $200 million.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/.../19/ariel-quiros-unfreeze-my-assets/83257644/

Man, my living expenses are more than $50 million. Aren't yours?

 

[HowieT2]

Quiros has asked the court to unfreeze his assets so he can pay his attorney and his basic living expenses.

He puts his net worth at approximately $200 million.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/.../19/ariel-quiros-unfreeze-my-assets/83257644/

Which begs the question, if he's really worth 200m why in the world would you steal this money?

 

[mister moose]

For what its worth, in another State oversight blunder case, it took from January 5, 2016 when the Michigan governor declared an emergency for Flint water until now for criminal charges to be filed. 106 days.

A different case obviously, but likely indicative of what can be expected for a large high profile case.

 

[JoeB-Z]

I've skimmed some of that deposition and he sounds crazy. He also cannot lie very well. His explanation as to how he got the money to buy Jay Peak makes no sense at all.

I agree that Q just sounds crazy from the transcript. He basically believed from the beginning that by purchasing Jay Peak, he was owed more than the purchase price in management fees by the early EB-5 projects, which is what he used to fund the purchase! He also believed that, as soon as he got control of EB-5 moneys in investment accounts at Raymond James, he was entitled to 20% of the funds as a management fee. He further believed that if he bought treasury bonds in those funds, he could then take out margin loans from the accounts backed by the bonds and spend the money however he saw fit. From there he proceeded to pay back the margin loans from the next EB-5 project. I suppose in the end he just looted the AncBio project. Apparently Stenger is in all the way and Quiros is trying to throw Bill Kelly and George Gulisano under the bus also. He also is poorly prepared by his attorney. He provides endless narrative explanations which is a bad practice. The appropriate answers are- yes, no, a simple direct answer if you know something, I don't know or I don't recall. If asked what a document means- it speaks for itself.

 

[VTKilarney]

Stenger is innocent???

http://vtdigger.org/2016/04/20/seni...-him-new-investors-would-fund-prior-projects/

 

[JoeB-Z]

Stenger is innocent???

http://vtdigger.org/2016/04/20/seni...-him-new-investors-would-fund-prior-projects/

Article is must read if you want to understand this thing without getting a headache. I had not seen this before I gave my gloss of the Quiros deposition above. Basically, because Quiros admitted so much, it lines up exactly.

 

[VTKilarney]

Article is must read if you want to understand this thing without getting a headache. I had not seen this before I gave my gloss of the Quiros deposition above. Basically, because Quiros admitted so much, it lines up exactly.

I find it interesting that Stenger's supporters want you to believe that he is a genius when it comes to running a multi-million dollar ski resort, but is a complete ignoramus when it comes to running his EB-5 projects.

I do, however, feel sorry that his legacy will be all about the EB-5 mess. A lot of good work he has done in the past will be forgotten.

 

[VTKilarney]

This affidavit from Jay Peak's former comptroller is interesting:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2805302/EXHIBIT-65-John-Carpenter-Worked-for-BS.pdf

Two things that I picked up on:
- There appears to be an email trail to show that Stenger knew that EB-5 funds were being misused as far back as 2010.
- Douglas Hulme of Rapid USA Visas was apparently made aware of this situation as far back as 2010, yet they did not part ways with Jay Peak until 2012. They aren't quite as squeaky clean as I had originally though if the allegations in this affidavit are true.

 

[MEtoVTSkier]

Dang VTK, you keep this up, VermontDigger is gonna want to hire you as an investigative reporter!

 

[VTKilarney]

Dang VTK, you keep this up, VermontDigger is gonna want to hire you as an investigative reporter!

This has not helped my work productivity. I've been staying late too many evenings to make up for the lost time during the day!

I like a good puzzle, and that's why this has interested me so much.

 

[VTKilarney]

Stenger broke his silence. He says what you would expect, that he had no idea any wrongdoing was going on:
http://vtdigger.org/2016/04/20/stenger-i-didnt-think-anything-wrong-was-going-on/

His timing isn't so great since the article about the Controller was posted on the same day. That's the article that references the email allegedly advising Stenger as far back as 2010 that the money from a later project was being used to pay for an earlier project.

Stenger said that he has a "handshake deal" with Quiros to own 20% of Jay Peak. Quiros, in his testimony to the SEC, stated that Stenger had a 15% interest but that Quiros took it away. Methinks that Stenger should have gotten his deal in writing.

 

[tnt1234]

I agree that Q just sounds crazy from the transcript. He basically believed from the beginning that by purchasing Jay Peak, he was owed more than the purchase price in management fees by the early EB-5 projects, which is what he used to fund the purchase! He also believed that, as soon as he got control of EB-5 moneys in investment accounts at Raymond James, he was entitled to 20% of the funds as a management fee. He further believed that if he bought treasury bonds in those funds, he could then take out margin loans from the accounts backed by the bonds and spend the money however he saw fit. From there he proceeded to pay back the margin loans from the next EB-5 project. I suppose in the end he just looted the AncBio project. Apparently Stenger is in all the way and Quiros is trying to throw Bill Kelly and George Gulisano under the bus also. He also is poorly prepared by his attorney. He provides endless narrative explanations which is a bad practice. The appropriate answers are- yes, no, a simple direct answer if you know something, I don't know or I don't recall. If asked what a document means- it speaks for itself.

I had to stop maybe half way in, but yeah, seems to me like he offered up the details of his ponzi scheme in pretty great detail!

At first it seemed to me like it never occurred to him that they would have copies of his bank statements on hand....at one point he even remarks at how much work these guys went thought to get all these abatements! - but he kept saying 'they owed jay peak money'....and that made the deal do-able....huh?

He seemed to think they would just take that at face value!

Then they just walked him through it....and he did seem to suggest that by buying T-bills, that would allow him to margin the accounts and use that borrowed money however he so chose!

Oh my dear go in heaven.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

 

[telemike]

I find it interesting that at least ten people I've talked to over here in NH haven't even heard of this story yet