What Do These Unusual Loans for Trump Advisor Paul Manafort's Carroll Gardens Brownstone Mean?
Could the Carroll Gardens brownstone owned by Trump advisor and former campaign manager Paul Manafort have anything to do with fraud, money laundering or ties between Russians and the Trump administration?
Could the Carroll Gardens brownstone owned by Trump advisor and former campaign manager Paul Manafort have anything to do with fraud, money laundering or ties between Russians and the Trump administration? Incredibly, it might be a possibility, depending on how you interpret some public information dug up by two attorneys, Julian Russo and Matthew Termine, and published on Atavist Monday and updated today.
The document comes as Manafort is back in the news for his alleged Russian-Trump ties. The “alleged Russian ties” that led him to resign from the Trump campaign are now “at the center of investigations into links between Moscow and people in Donald Trump’s orbit,” according to a Wall Street Journal article that came out late Monday night.
As for the info in the Atavist document, we’ll cut to the chase: The most recent loans taken out on the brownstone at 377 Union Street are, um, unusual for several reasons: Banks don’t typically loan in excess of the value of a property or on properties in default. Also, the sum borrowed, $6.6 million, “appears to be a relatively large percentage of this bank’s total assets (2.2%) and total shareholder equity (10.9%),” according to the Atavist document.
The loans were made by the Federal Savings Bank, whose founder, chairman and ceo is Steve Calk, a Trump supporter and member of the Trump Economic Advisory Council.
Why would a bank loan millions on a house in default?
The document also describes connections between Manafort and an alleged Ponzi scheme allegedly run by his son-in-law. There is more information in the Atavist document. None of this proves any wrongdoing, of course, although it shows an unusual financial history.
The original story was published by Carroll Gardens blog Pardon Me For Asking.
The property is a relatively small two-family with 4,400 square feet and no excess FAR. Even if Manafort were planning, say, an eight-unit condo on this footprint, it probably wouldn’t be worth much more than about $4 million.
Manafort is, in fact, planning to convert the property to a single-family house, he told the New York Post Monday. He “has hired a new architect” and intends “to complete construction by the end of the year.”
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