Florida man's mountain deals in N.C. are a mystery (Mortgage fraudster with mob ties; SunTrust)

[seafan]

The St. Petersburg Times has a comprehensive exposé of this very shadowy story. The answers are likely not pretty.



Florida man's mountain deals in N.C. are a mystery

By Lucy Morgan
July 20, 2008

CASHIERS, N.C. — Florida retirees escape the summer heat to this laid-back haven of waterfalls and mountain views. But now it's buzzing with talk.
A man with a colorful history is up to something on Big Ridge, a mountain community about 10 miles from the nearest stop light. No one is quite sure what is going on.

The man is Domenic Rabuffo, a Miami resident whose onetime business partner, the "fat man,'' was killed in a 1987 mob hit as he dined at Bravo Sergio, an Italian restaurant in Manhattan.
Rabuffo and his partner were accused of masterminding a $49-million mortgage fraud. Rabuffo pleaded guilty, went into the witness protection program and served a brief prison sentence.

Now, amid the huge downturn in the real estate market, he is shepherding a real estate development that is completely out of character for the area. He is building huge luxury homes sandwiched on 1-acre tracts, in a gated community he values at more than $200-million.
Rabuffo has been buying land, often paying dramatically more than it's worth, and selling it to people who pay even more. The buyers, some having never laid eyes on the property, all obtain big mortgages. Though Rabuffo is calling the shots, his name does not appear in most of the documents relating to the project.

It's the big mystery on Big Ridge, where curious residents call Rabuffo "the mobster.''

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“I got nothing to hide. I worked too hard to hide anything,’’ developer Domenic Rabuffo says.

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It has been 14 years since Rabuffo walked out of a federal prison.
Facing as much as 80 years in prison and having to repay millions of the $49-million he took in fraudulent loans, he became a federal witness against others. He paid a fine of about $11,000 and served five months behind bars. ..... About four years ago, Rabuffo bought a house in these mountains, which are renowned for the awesome views. He has been buying property since — often overpaying, according to prices stated when the deeds were recorded.

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Lawrence Ashe, an Atlanta lawyer, recently sold a house to Rabuffo for $500,000, almost twice what Ashe thought it was worth.
"I think it's nuts,'' Ashe says. "Where's the money coming from? He's putting mansions within a few feet of each other. I don't know why anyone would buy what he is selling.''
But buying they are. With no advertising.

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With no advertising, the cool real estate market and mortgages increasingly unattainable, Rabuffo has sold more than 100 lots.
Deeds recorded in Jackson County indicate the undeveloped lots have been sold for $650,000 an acre, an astronomical sum for land on Big Ridge, where an acre usually goes for no more than $50,000.
"Something is very wrong with that; $650,000 an acre is incredulous,'' says Dennis Ford, project superintendent for Sims Valley, another development off Big Ridge Road. "Nobody is selling that kind of lot up here. It's just bizarre to build houses that size on the side of the mountain. They are going to wash down the hill.''

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Buyers are taking out mortgages that average $487,500 for the property alone. They live in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Brandon, Dunedin, Tarpon Springs, Miami and a handful of other places.

Donald D. Busby Jr., a mechanical engineer at Baxter Healthcare Corp. in Largo, said he did not visit the development before buying four half-acre lots for $1.2-million. .... Other buyers include a convicted sex offender from Miami whose picture appears on state law enforcement Web sites, the owner of a Tampa window blind company, Odessa residents who own an Internet site that offers views of naked women, and dozens of other Florida residents.
The buyer with the most holdings is Yolanda Serrano, a 44-year-old native of Colombia. She lives in Rockledge, near Cocoa Beach, but now she's a resident of the Brevard County Jail.

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SunTrust holds about $34-million in mortgages on lots in Rabuffo's development. Bank of America holds mortgages totaling about $8-million, Wachovia about $7.3-million and Regions Bank about $5.4-million.
Fourteen mortgage foreclosure suits have been filed against individual property owners to force immediate payment of $19-million in mortgage money loaned by SunTrust. Rabuffo is not a named defendant in any of the suits.
"That's just SunTrust trying to get out of their loans because they are upside down,'' Rabuffo says. "The loans aren't delinquent, they are all paid up.''

Fourteen houses are in various stages of construction, but little has been done lately. The original contractor, Schmitt Construction Co., of nearby Highlands, left the job this year after filing $650,000 in liens against the properties. The liens have been settled; owner Gary Schmitt says he has worked out an agreement to complete the houses and SunTrust has extended financing.
There is also the matter of unpaid property taxes. Last month the Jackson County tax collector included Rabuffo, several of his corporations and many of the individual property owners in a list of delinquent taxpayers, noting more than $150,000 in unpaid taxes for 2007.

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Hmmm.

A fraudster developer with mob ties and a criminal record purchasing rural, pristine North Carolina mountain land at vastly inflated prices.. Many new buyers of these divided lots have shady histories and others aren't talking.. Rabuffo himself and multiple property owners now in delinquency of payment of property taxes and are the subjects of liens.. SunTrust bank, handler of large sums of money for Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi; in addition, of Arthur Andersen fame, heavily involved in the mortgage financing...

Rabuffo, who turned 72 this month, says he plans to move back to his beloved New York and spend more time with his eight children and 14 grandchildren.
He says he is selling his $2-million penthouse in Coconut Grove and turning more of the work overseeing the North Carolina development to Ray Olivier, a Tampa engineer.

Rabuffo's legacy in North Carolina will be some 150 acres, carved into 1-acre lots, surrounded by pristine acreage where Christmas tree farms and the summer homes of other Floridians dot the landscape.
"He's damaged the property, I don't know if it's recoverable,'' says Craig Cotterman, a Largo resident who has owned land here for 35 years and has a clear view of the buildings Rabuffo is putting up.
"It surely isn't what we dreamt of when we bought our property about 25 years ago and built our house,'' says Coral Gables resident Mimi Armstrong.

To those who say he's ruining what makes the area special, Rabuffo says that he is not only building a new resort here, he also is buying and fixing up old houses. And raising property values.
Residents are well aware of what's happening to property values — and are unhappy to see their tax values double and triple because of Rabuffo's project.

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Is someone out there in addition to the St. Pete Times' excellent investigation looking at this?

[hatrack]

1. Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

:shrug:

[seemslikeadream]

2. I bet there's an Jack Abramoff connection

[seemslikeadream]

3. Scandal figure tied to Iran Contra Drug Trafficking

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5530071