The Donald doing business with some bad guys and he gets a pass.
Donald Trump found not guilty in Florida condo trial:
While a Florida jury on Wednesday found Donald Trump “not guilty of deceiving buyers” in the gorgeous and beautiful The Trump International Hotel & Tower, it is quite interesting to note what wasn’t revealed in the court. While the judge believed Trump had only licensed his name to the troubled project, which collapsed under the weight of the Great Recession and was foreclosed upon in 2009, some people clearly are happy it is done – and not just the Donald.
Bayrock – the developers of the project whom Trump liscened his name to was co-founded by 2 convicted felons, and Jody Kriss, who now owns a Brooklyn real estate company. Who were Trump and Kriss’ partners on this project? Tevfik Arif, reputedly a well-known Mafia member – who has been referred to as the an underground head of a money-laundering network involved in financing terrorist groups in the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, according to the Kavkaz Center, an agency that reports on Islamic affairs in the the Caucasus and Russia. Arif was arrested in 2010 for allegedly organizing a prostitution ring.
Another South Florida link comes with Ron Kriss, who today works at Stroock, Stroock & Lavan, but for many years was partners with convicted felons in the Bayrock Group.
While Trump has vowed to work to recover legal fees, he’s not the only one who knows his way around a courtroom. Jody Kriss, the other Bayrock co-founder previously sued a United States attorney for criminal misconduct, four white shoe law firms, and asked to have famed Federal Judge Leo Glasser removed from his case – Glasser came to fame when he presided over the trial of John Gotti. Read the case here
Kriss and his son made millions with Bayrock, which had the Russian Mafia’s hand prints all over it. Donald Trump is sitting pretty happy to have been found not-guilty as he was able to show he wasn’t the developer.
