Today, I officially filed the following complaint and request for criminal investigation with the FBI regarding Deer Ridge Mountain Resort and the GGRC HOA.
After the last “board” meeting, I, along with several other owners, are totally fed up with the board not providing copies of all books and records that we all deserve. Based on EVERY board members‘ absolute resolve NOT to allow ANY copies of ANY books and records, I am now personally 100% convinced that Joey and the board are hiding criminal financial malfeasance to the detriment of all non-board Deer Ridge owners.
I have been involved in too many businesses in too many facets of real estate not to overwhelmingly sense, in my personal opinion, that we are all being criminally ripped off at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort.
No matter what the Master Deed says, a transparent and forthright board would provide these documents to the benefit of everyone! The fact they are ALL fighting tooth and nail to prevent the release of copies of ANY of these documents speaks volumes to me, personally, about criminal intent and fact.
The White Collar Crime Division of the FBI has begun criminally investigating HOA and their boards and managers across the country. For example, click HOA Investigation. There is a fast growing trend in this country to start treating HOA managers and board members as quasi-government officials – holding them to the same standards as public officials when it comes to major white collar crime, corruption, financial misappropriations, kickbacks, embezzlement, illegitimate board member compensation, securities fraud and other possible financial crimes.
If we can get the FBI interested and convinced enough to pursue these perceived problems with GGRC and RML, they will hopefully run a comprehensive forensic audit going back several years. And, when the FBI runs an audit, they can find stuff – no matter how much Joey may have had his computer guy from North Carolina try to hide any suspicious trail. My guess is that the FBI will want to talk to him, and a whole lot of other folks, at length if they pursue this investigation. And I doubt that any one is going to risk lying to the FBI to try to protect any potential guilty parties at Deer Ridge.
It may take the FBI 2-4 months to get to us, depending on how busy the White Collar Crime Division is in the Knoxville office (which has jurisdictional responsibility for Sevier County.) If you would like to file your own request for an FBI investigation of the shenanigans at Deer Ridge, you can do so online by clicking FBI Complaint. I would guess that the more of us who file a request for a criminal investigation, the more attention the case will get and the faster any investigation will commence. Also, please let me know if you would be willing to talk with the FBI about any investigation they may initiate.
I see this criminal investigation happening in addition to the civil lawsuit I am still pursuing.
Unless requested otherwise by the FBI, I will update this story on this Deer Ridge Owners blog as any investigation proceeds.
Then again, who knows? A half dozen black vans with two dozen FBI agents may just show up one day at the Deer Ridge offices, sweep in and confiscated everything. Just like on TV.
Stay tuned.
Suspected Crimes: White Collar Crime, Corruption, Financial Misappropriations, Kickbacks, Embezzlement, Illegitimate Board Member Compensation, Securities Fraud
Alleged Suspects: General Manager and Members of the Board of Directors of Gatlinburg Golf and Racquet Club, AKA Deer Ridge Mountain Resort, AKA Ridge Management LTD, Inc. et al.
Location: Gatlinburg, Sevier County, Tennessee – Knoxville Office of FBI
Federal Jurisdiction: Property owners in multiple states, board members domiciled in multiple states, units sold to buyers in multiple states as investments.
It is my understanding that the FBI’s White Collar Crime Division has begun investigating Home Owners Associations across the country and criminally prosecuting those board members and managers found to have been financially diverting HOA funds illegally for their own personal gain.
If so, I applaud this focus since nearly a quarter of all Americans now live under some sort of HOA Regime. These Regimes have become quasi-government entities like towns and cities – and their ruling boards of elected members should be held accountable under the same legal scrutiny as government officials when it comes to financial malfeasance.
Summary Background
I have been the owner of a condo at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the past four years. During that time I have constantly and continually requested copies of the books and records of our homeowners association and other associated operating companies. Likewise, many other owners have made the same request. I have even offered to bring my own copy machine to the main office and use my own time and equipment to make these copies.
Even as recently as four weeks ago, I and several other owners attended a board meeting. We all specifically requested copies of the books and records be made available. Every member of the board and the general manager, Joe Thomas, categorically refused to allow any owner to have copies of ANY requested books and records.
This same board is now attempting to force all owners to fund a $353,500 special assessment but very suspiciously refuses to provide ANY underlying documentation that supports the amount of the assessment other than four or five single line items. For example, one particularly suspicious line item on the special assessment is, “Nuts and Bolts — $50,000.” That’s a lot of nuts and bolts.
Official FBI Request
I am filing this official criminal investigation request with the FBI because I, and several other owners, believe the reasons that copies of the books and records are not made available to the owners is because the general managers and the board are attempting to conceal major white collar crime, corruption, financial misappropriations, kickbacks, embezzlement, illegitimate board member compensation, securities fraud and other possible financial crimes being committed by persons associated with the operation and management of Deer Ridge Mountain Resort.
To be clear, all of these allegations are currently unsubstantiated since we have been completely blocked by Joe Thomas and the board in all of our combined attempts to get copies of the needed books and records. However, the more adamantly resolved the general manager and the board are about providing owners with copies of all books and records, the more strongly indicative it is that they are fighting with all of their efforts to hide probable illegal activities from the very owners they are suppose to represent.
My background in real estate gives me particularly keen insights into the multiple signs of rampant malfeasance at this property. Before I retired, I personally spent three decades as CEO of multiple companies – including 15 years as founder and CEO of my own property management company managing 45,000 rental units. As a result of that experience, and the internal audits we had to constantly run on our own managers, my very strong intuition is that this board and general manager are attempting to hide major criminal activity in the possible aggregate range of $250,000 to $2 million.
The Alleged Suspects
The Board members include Luther Parker, President, Memphis, TN; Thomas Reise, Vice President, Friendship, WI; Larry Ohm, Treasurer; Grant Park, IL; David Barone, Secretary, Monroe, NY; Margie Duncan, Director, Florence, KY. Complete home addresses and phone numbers of these board members can be provided upon request.
The General Manager is Joseph W. Thomas whose home phone number and address are believed to be: (865) 932-1669 3229 Autumn Lane, Kodak, TN 37764. It is my personal belief that this long term manager may be the primary source of much of the alleged activity.
Request For Criminal Investigation
As a result, I and other concerned owners at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort, formally request that the FBI instigate a preliminary criminal investigation of Joe Thomas and the current members of the GGRC Board of Directors to determine if a comprehensive investigation and criminal charges should be pursued against these individuals.
With the Board’s demand that all owners now contribute half of the $353,500 special assessment prior to March 1, 2010, many of us fear is that these monies also will be immediately misappropriated. As a consequence, your quick investigation would be appreciated. We are going to pursue civil litigation on many other issues but are concerned that the civil courts will not respond in a timely enough manner to prevent major misappropriation of the special assessment funds.
You have my complete contact information on this form. Please contact me directly if you have any questions or need more information from me or other concerned owners. You might find my blog about these issues informative: www.DeerRidgeOwners.com. Various documents and comments from multiple owners can be viewed there.
Thank you for your consideration of this criminal investigation.
As I mentioned, nothing has happened yet. I just filed this request for a criminal investigation today.
It is just a request and there is no known currently active criminal investigation with regard to Joe Thomas or any board member. The FBI may decide there is insufficient information. They may decide that I and my strong intuition are completely wrong – and that everything and everyone involved with the management of Deer Ridge is legitimately doing everything right – properly crossing every T and dotting every I.
I don’t think so – but hopefully, the FBI will help us even come to those conclusions as a result of any investigation they might initiate.
Stay tuned. We live in interesting times.
Tags: HOA lawsuit, fire the board, Tennessee, Cobbly Nob, Fire Joe Thomas, secrecy, fraud, secret deals, FBI, RML, Luther Parker, Board of Directors, HOA, side deals, Deer Ridge Mountain Resort, Criminal Investigation, master deed, lawsuit
I personally believe this is the best approach. The Board could have avoided all of these hassles if they only let us have copies of the books.
The only reason to not allow for total transparency is that there is something to hide. In which case, this approach is the best way to sort all of this out.
Obviously, the FBI will be interested in this case as they are interested in HOA’s. The FBI’s purpose for these types of investigations is to determine if parties are or ever were involved in any inappropriate or unlawful acts. Management companies are included in these types of investigations as well. And, even if the Joe or members of the board quit, they will still be held criminally responsible if anything like that has been happening.
Transparency of all books and records by providing copies of all receipts and all documents to any and all owners who wanted them would have been the better approach for the board and Joe. All Luther had to do was say “Let’s get this cleared up once and for all, come have copies of whatever you want and if you find any problems, we’ll fix them.”
Instead, we get stonewalled. And, the ONLY reason, the ONLY reason, has got to be something major wrong is being hidden from the owners. I hope the FBI finds out what, or all of the Whats, and sends any wrongdoers to jail.
Katherine,
I couldn’t have said it better than your comment.
Bottom line: Whether we owners post on this blog or not, most of us KNOW that there are too many ‘oddities’ here and have been for a long time. Joe has been in place way too long.
With all the nepotism that is put in place by Joe and the way the board members get nominated, the meetings before the meetings and what is actually SAID at the meetings, refusal of digital recordings of the meetings that would be provided free. They do not want openness at all. They want to slide $ and deals through.
We, as owners truly need resolution of some kind, in some way. I guess this FBI approach is one path to get it? I surely hope they can act relatively fast. Something truly needs to occur PRIOR to the assessment date. Or a civil suit needs to stop that assessment until we KNOW where our funds are in fact going. The only way to know that is a forensic audit. If any place needs one this one does!
Handing over hoa’s/assessments to Joe/board is like tossing money in a big black hole and i do not know how much more any of us need with a manager and his buddy board members that WANT OUR MONEY DESPERATELY but REFUSE to OPEN BOOKS and do not want TRANSPARENCY.
How can they not be accountable in any way and continue to expect us to hand over $353,500? Raise hoa’s to run their rml, and do anything they darn well please with our money. Just what are they doing with our money? Is this America?