Jay, Burke and EB-5

^ You beat me to it, just came here to post that. Wanna buy some land near Jay Peak? Holy moly, that's a lot of property going up for sale.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

^ You beat me to it, just came here to post that. Wanna buy some land near Jay Peak? Holy moly, that's a lot of property going up for sale.

I know! I was shocked as to how much!

LOL, $84 million

And here I was finally getting used to Q Burke!

Q got off way easy IMO. No prison time?

Harvey wrote

Q got off way easy IMO. No prison time?

Isn't it great what money can buy.

Harvey wrote

Q got off way easy IMO. No prison time?

Agreed. In another place, someone commented that there might be prison after the payments get settled.

But think about it, how long will it take all those properties to sell, including Burke and Jay? Anybody interested is going to know the story and will make lowball offers, what happens if he doesn't make the full payment?

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Harvey wrote

Q got off way easy IMO. No prison time?

Agreed.

I think he stole more than the fine.

I'm always amazed that people think they can get away with this stuff.  We'll take in 400 mil in cash build 100 mil in shit, and maybe noone will notice>

"The SEC said Quiros used the money to pay his personal taxes and to buy two luxury condominiums in Manhattan, one of which was at Trump Place."

Oh. Right.

Swamp drained.

https://vtdigger.org/2018/02/14/jay-peak-burke-go-market-may/

It goes on and on and on
https://vtdigger.org/2018/10/29/quiros-insurer-reach-secret-settlement-ahead-trial-10m-policy-dispute/

And on....
https://vtdigger.org/2019/03/11/jay-peak-receiver-argues-saint-saveur-valley-resorts-owes-80m-eb-5-fraud/

Wow. Just when you thought things couldn't get any more tangled up.

Impending
https://www.wcax.com/content/news/Charges-Coming-in-Kingdom-Con-510222141.html

I guess they were right
https://vtdigger.org/2019/05/22/federal-grand-jury-indicts-jay-peak-developers/

Wow. The poop has really hit the fan now. Whatever he has done wrong, I feel sorry for Bill Stenger, a guy who worked his way up in the ski industry, put his heart and soul into running Jay Peak, sold his soul to the devil Q, and now, at 70, gets led into court in handcuffs.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Wow. The poop has really hit the fan now. Whatever he has done wrong, I feel sorry for Bill Stenger, a guy who worked his way up in the ski industry, put his heart and soul into running Jay Peak, sold his soul to the devil Q, and now, at 70, gets led into court in handcuffs.

Agreed!!  Who knows what he knew, maybe he was just mesmermized or starstruck by Q and his big bucks?

Sick Bird Rider wrote

Whatever he has done wrong, I feel sorry for Bill Stenger, a guy who worked his way up in the ski industry, put his heart and soul into running Jay Peak, sold his soul to the devil Q, and now, at 70, gets led into court in handcuffs.

I still remember during our Ski Blogger Summit at Jay Peak (already eight years ago!), when you, MadPat, MC, Harv, and I had drinks with now-CEO Steve Wright. He went on at length with a heartfelt account about how fantastic it was to work hand-in-hand with a guy like Stenger (partially covered in an interview posted a few months later) and now we find out what Bill was up to at that time.

LOL, scroll down to the interview comments and I wrote "it appears that the big takeaway from Steve Wright and places like MRG is that skiers like to be told the truth, or at least something in the general ballpark, even if the the truth isn’t always palatable." I was referring to something completely different (snow reports), but kinda amusing in retrospect. Much closer to the bone: another comment points out “be careful what you wish for… money is like heroin … once Jay’s owners get a taste for the increased cash flow, it’s not going to be enough." Ouch.

I believe we've discussed this before but you gotta wonder how much of an inkling Stenger's senior management team had about what was going on. In retrospect, there must have been piles of signs that something wasn't adding up.

Sick Bird Rider wrote

I feel sorry for Bill Stenger, a guy who worked his way up in the ski industry, put his heart and soul into running Jay Peak, sold his soul to the devil Q, and now, at 70, gets led into court in handcuffs.

I have no empathy, especially for white collar criminals.  I don't know if he did what he is accused of or not.  I'll let the justice system and time sort that out.

I do feel bad for the families in these situations, though......assuming they never know what's going on.

The indictment says the defendants met in Korea in November 2012 to finalize plans for the project and during that visit, Quiros and Choi “documented their plan to split $34 million.”

“They also documented that Kelly was to receive $4 million and Stenger was to receive $1 million in connection with the ‘management fee,’” prosecutors wrote.

I had assumed involvement by Stenger may not have been willfully deceitful but rather in support of growing the economy of the NEK... or perhaps he didn't know the extent of the scheme until it was too late and then perhaps it was "go along to get the project done to help the area despite reservations" or something like that. But if he was also on the take and pocketing a million, he certainly loses any defense of being a useful idiot manipulated by con-men with promises of helping the region financially.

riverc0il wrote

I had assumed involvement by Stenger may not have been willfully deceitful but rather in support of growing the economy of the NEK... or perhaps he didn't know the extent of the scheme until it was too late and then perhaps it was "go along to get the project done to help the area despite reservations" or something like that. But if he was also on the take and pocketing a million, he certainly loses any defense of being a useful idiot manipulated by con-men with promises of helping the region financially.

That's where I was coming from too.  A million seems like chump change to fuck up your life forever, when the other guys were getting much more.

Still I don't get any of it.  If you've been saving all your career you probably have as much as you need. How old is Stenger? Did he live a modest life or was he a spender?  Maybe he was in over is head.