While we continue to wait for any type of relief from this mess, I felt it was time to write to the NY AG to complain about the lack of progress. I addressed my most recent letter to Louis Solomon, the assistant AG, since he is the individual who actually signed the "Assurance of Discontinuance" with Eichner for the AG. The AG supposedly reached a settlement 6 months ago, ended their investigation of TMC, and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED SINCE. The text of my letter follows. Please use it any way you choose to hound the AG's office to get moving. email communications are too easy to ignore, so I recommend a snail mailed letter in addition to any emailed correspondence you send.
Bob Biello =================================================================================
February 12, 2018
Mr. Louis Solomon Assistant Attorney General New York Attorney General’s Office 120 Broadway New York, NY 10271 Re: Case # 451536/2014 Schneiderman v. Eichner Dear Mr. Solomon:
My wife and I are among the thousands of owners of timeshare interests in The Manhattan Club who have been defrauded by the improper conduct of Ian Bruce Eichner, a Manhattan real estate billionaire, members of his family, and a close circle of associates.
In July, 2014, your office began a 3 year-long investigation which discovered evidence that Eichner and his associates played a direct role in carrying out a huge timeshare scam against an estimated 14,000 to 18,000 Manhattan Club owners for at least 10 years, defrauding us out of tens of millions of dollars. My wife and I and literally thousands of other timeshare owners have suffered very significant financial losses due to the fraudulent conduct of the Eichner family, The Manhattan Club, and its related companies.
The Manhattan Club’s obligation to me as a timeshare owner was to make 7 days per year available to stay at the property. Instead of making those days reasonably available, The Manhattan Club engaged in an organized scheme to routinely tell me, and other timeshare owners who called to make reservations, that the requested days were not available, while at the same time, Manhattan Club representatives were selling the same rooms for the same dates to the general public on the Internet. Also, based on evidence gathered during your investigation, we learned that Eichner has been personally skimming $6,000,000 a year from The Manhattan Club through a shell management company called “Urban”. For years, this company had no employees and provided no services to the operation of the timeshare property, yet our timeshare corporation was paying them (Eichner) $6 million a year!
In July, 2017, your office announced that the NY Attorney General had reached a settlement with the respondents in this case, and was ending its investigation into the operation of The Manhattan Club timeshare with the signing of an “Assurance of Discontinuance. On August 14, 2017, you signed assurance no. 17-149, on behalf of the NY Attorney General, with the respondents in this case. While it is true that the settlement will result in the removal of some really “bad apples” from the NY timeshare business, it fails to address most of the allegations of wrongdoing committed against us timeshare owners by Ian Bruce Eichner and his close circle of associates.
Of course, this will only be effective if the respondents actually carry out the stipulations to which they agreed when signing the Assurance of Discontinuance. It would be helpful if we had a contact person to keep affected owners informed. Has anyone in your office been assigned specific responsibility to monitor adherence to the conditions in the assurance and carry out possible enforcement actions?
I have been closely monitoring the Internet for word that the conditions in the Assurance of Discontinuance are being properly carried out or enforced. Unfortunately, during the 6 months since your press release of August 16, 2017, in which you announced the settlement, I have not seen any evidence that the stipulations Eichner agreed to have actually been carried out.
The Assurance of Discontinuance section titled, “PROSPECTIVE RELIEF,” page 12, paragraph 62, states that, “Respondents shall enter into an agreement with the third-party operator of timeshare properties (TMC Purchaser) previously identified to the OAG on or about July 28, 2017…”
Who is this third-party operator (TMC Purchaser)? Has the required agreement been signed? If so, when? If not, what enforcement steps will the AG’s office take due to this violation of the assurance?
Paragraph 63 of the assurance states that, “All Sponsor-appointed officers and directors will resign from their positions as members of the board of the Timeshare Association…” There have been no reported resignations of any officers or directors of the Timeshare Association. What enforcement steps will the AG’s office take due to this violation of the assurance?
The Assurance of Discontinuance section titled, “RESTITUTION,” page 14, paragraph 65, itemizes a schedule of payments respondents are required to make as a condition of the assurance. Their first payment of $3,250,000 was due 15 days after the release of frozen funds. Has your office received this payment? If so, when was it received and when will these funds be distributed to timeshare owners? If not, what steps will the AG’s office take due to this violation of the assurance?
Your investigation uncovered evidence that Eichner and his cronies engaged in a massive timeshare fraud. They have demonstrated that they are not honorable people and I would not be surprised to learn that they have not carried out any of the stipulations to which they agreed when signing the Assurance of Discontinuance.
As a result of the fraudulent conduct perpetrated against us by Mr. Eichner, The Manhattan Club and its affiliates, as well as the NY Attorney General's allegations of fraud and other criminal conduct, I urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to force them to honor the conditions of the Assurance of Discontinuance and to pay the mandated restitution.
Sincerely yours,
Robert A. Biello
