an excerpt from GangsterPlanet
For many people, a “happy ending” is the satisfying conclusion to an upbeat book or movie. For others, it’s what a masseuse gives a client in an erotic massage parlor.
In the Palm Beach metro area, according to the seemingly-authoritative website “Rugmaps,” there are 44 erotic massage parlors.
One of them, ‘Orchids of Asia Day Spa’ in Jupiter, is where Robert Kraft, the owner of the world champion New England Patriots, was busted in a prostitution sting, which must have spoiled Mr. Kraft’s own ‘happy ending,’ if only in retrospect.
Paul Manafort is a person who got a happy ending last week.
How to skate on federal charges
What do all the people mentioned here: Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, Abe Gosman, Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, have in common?
They’re connected. As we’ll see, in a network and to a network. How can you tell?
Because being connected means never having to say you’re sorry.
That’s it. There is no secret handshake. Case in point: Paul Manafort was convicted of crimes committed over almost an entire decade. He tried to tamper with witnesses. He showed no remorse. He even failed to apologize for his crimes.
That’s why his unequal treatment at sentencing provoked such widespread disbelief; as if blatant hypocrisy were out of the ordinary.
It’s not. The sort of blatant hypocrisy shown to Manafort by the judge is as common as dirt. Where else can you see it? Where is it most obvious?
At a location which is very much a part of the Mueller investigation:
515 North County Road in Palm Beach.
iDonald Trump sold a tacky mansion at that address to a man the New York Times euphemistically called a “fertilizer magnate.”
He’s not.
Dmitry Rybolovlev is a Russian mobster-turned-oligarch.
Had they known, the doyennes of Palm Beach society would have let Donald Trump know what they thought about his importing a gangster with blood on his hands into their midst.
Comb-overs can sometimes be a dead give away
Even though he’s due back in federal court today for sentencing in a separate criminal case, Manafort must feel pretty good about his light sentence.
Being convicted of eight felonies involving major tax and bank fraud is enough to give anyone pause.
The judge explained that Manafort had lived an “otherwise blameless life,” despite his multiple serious crimes, and earned “the admiration of many;” and afforded Manafort the benefit of the doubt again and again, even speculating a fraudulent loan application was just the oversight of a “very busy man.”
Manafort had an ally on his side most people don’t: the U.S. Judge who sentenced him.
Sometimes comb overs are a dead giveaway.
The history of 515 N. County Road
At 515 N County Road, the man whose house was a steal for Donald Trump at a bankruptcy auction, got his own happy ending, very much like Paul Manafort’s.
Abe Gosman and his wife waltzed away from federal charges… the same way Paul Manafort did.
But first a little colorful history. The first house built at 515 N County Road was built in 1916 by Robert Dun, a member of the Dun & Bradstreet family.
In 1930, he sold the place to Harrison Williams, a utilities tycoon then known as “the richest man in America,” whose wife Mona (later Countess von Bismarck) was one of the most fashionable women of her time (1930s – 1970s).
After she sold the property in 1947, she moved to a villa on the island of Capri on land that once belonged to Roman Emperors Augustus and Tiberius.
The next owner was an oilman, Charles J Wrightsman of Standard Oil of Kansas, who was himself the son of an oilman, who owned, said the New York Times, “one of the most important private art collections in the world.”
After he and his wife donated a particularly famous painting that most have never head of to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, he told a reporter, ”Mrs. Wrightsman and I lead a very quiet life and we try to avoid publicity.” He explained, ”I had a father who told me, ‘I never saw a deaf and dumb man in jail.’”
In 1985, businessman Leslie Wexner of the Limited bought it for $10 million and tore it down. His money was managed by Jeffrey Epstein, which some found odd.
Wexner sold his half-finished mansion three years later to Abe Gosman, described by a business reporter who knew him well as “nursing home magnate and vulgarian-at-large Abe Gosman.”
Palmy times in Palm Beach
The acquisition and building of Maison L’Amitie would, in retrospect, mark the beginning of one of the most sensational reversals of fortune in the history of Palm Beach.
But first came some palmy times.
His “fabulous oceanfront estate” hosted Ethel Kennedy while the Kennedy’s Palm Beach compound underwent renovation.
When Prince Albert of Monaco hosted a cocktail party in Monte Carlo to celebrate the induction of a new Commodore at the Commodore Club, he held it on Abe’s mega-yacht “The Octopussy.”
Admiral Booda and Vice Admiral Richard C. Allen were special guests at a Pearl Harbor Day Remembrance luncheon at his house.
At a dinner he threw himself in Boston to honor what the Boston Globe tongue-in-cheek called “His vast accomplishments in the healthcare field, he was flanked by famous pols he’d got to sit on his board, from Republican Sen. Edward Brooke to Democratic Governor Hugh Carey of New York.
In his speech he praised the ethnic diversity of his board. “Italians, Jews, coloreds, we got em all.”
“His offhand remarks caused throats to clear and evening wear to rustle,” wrote the Boston Globe. But in the end, it was interpreted as naivete rather than racism or sexism. And no one was mailing him back his checks.
Getting married on the Octopussy: A faux pas?
Gosman lavished his girlfriend with gifts before they were married: $3 million in cash, a Mercedes, a 20-carat diamond. Still the Palm Beach Post reported, all was not rosy. “A tearful pre-nup preceded their marriage in 1996.”
Although several years earlier he was once worth a reputed $470 million—providing a hint of where all that Medicare money goes—Gosman filed for personal bankruptcy in 2001.
Gosman had gone belly up after Federal auditors began probing his Massachusetts nursing homes as part of a national anti-fraud campaign called—with unintended irony— “Operation Restore Trust.”
Abe Gosman eventually rode three separate public companies to the ground. There’s no telling how much was looted. But it was a lot.
Counting on Florida’s homestead law, which typically protects real estate holdings in the case of bankruptcy filings, to protect his mansion, Gosman had parked his assets in his wife’s name.
Then a federal bankruptcy judge dropped a bombshell. He ruled that Abe wasn’t legally married. At the time of ‘Abe and Lin’s’ big “theme” wedding aboard his 132-foot mega-yacht, the Octopussy, his new wife wasn’t yet legally divorced.
The judge said Abe had lost his “marital shield.” $40 million went up in smoke.
With the benefit of hindsight, Abe might have realized that getting married aboard ’The Octopussy’ might color his entire marriage.
Slings & arrows…and Bargain Bob
During bankruptcy proceeding, Abe was the target of insults from creditors. One swore he was going to make sure that Abe ended up “in a one-bedroom condo in West Palm driving a used Volvo.”
Pretty gruesome.
The million-dollar condo they moved into placed a lien on his apartment for failure to pay maintenance fees. Then Abe didn’t pay a $600 installation fee to “Bargain Bob’s New & Used Carpets.”
Bargain Bob slapped him with a construction lien.
Testimony revealed that Lin was clearly upset when Abe didn’t offer her an ownership interest in the house. It got worse when Abe insisted on a pre-nup. A tearful Lin signed it nine days before their marriage.
The bankruptcy court found Gosman had tried to shield assets by shifting them to Lin, and she was ordered to pay $66 million to the trustees
Lin Gosman committed fraud and perjury that went far beyond secreting jewelry in the back of the closet and forgetting to list it. Her mercantile instincts were sharp, as she by the fact that she had “persistently pestered her husband to finance a pre-arranged marital trust.”
The bankruptcy trustee’s lawyer repeatedly told the judge she couldn’t be trusted to produce assets and documents.”
Later he told the judge recovering Lin’s hidden assets hadn’t been easy. “It’s been like climbing Mount Everest,’ he told the judge.
He accused her of lying under oath and concealing assets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. “She doesn’t play by the rules,” he told the judge. “She’s just not credible.’
During the bankruptcy trial the judge admonished her, then fined her, then held her in contempt of court.
She often appeared irritated, crossing her arms and shaking her head defiantly at the trustee’s questions.
Three felonies & lots of tears
Her trial on half a dozen felony counts two years later was, if anything, worse.
When it was over, she’d been convicted of one count of tax fraud, one count of bankruptcy fraud, and one count of mortgage fraud.
She admitted concealing assets in a Swiss bank account she controlled under the name Charm Enterprises Ltd.
She admitted to lying under oath about hiding furniture artwork and jewelry in a storage locker.
When she showed up for sentencing, she and Abe arrive separately. Trouble in paradise. But being sentenced to probation improved the mood.
She couldn’t believe it. While waiting to be sentenced, she sat weeping on a bench in the lobby, reported the Palm Beach Post. “I am a decent human being. I think the community is horrified at what is happening here.”
The paper asked, “Was Lin Gosman the victim of an abusive and overzealous trustee in her husband’s bankruptcy?’
When there was a sentencing delay, the paper decried it as a “Stressful Setback for Former Socialite.”
When it was time for final arguments and sentencing, there were surprises in store.
Abe Gosman waxed theatrical. He asked the judge to spare his wife any prison time. “Like Reagan said, ‘Tear down these walls Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down these prison walls, judge!”
Lin Gosman tried to hide more than $4 million in assets, said the U.S. attorney.
“Her actions were done clearly in an effort to hinder delay and defraud creditors,” summed up Asst U.S. Atty Carolyn Bell. “Her actions were “secretive, deliberate and dishonest. It was criminal.”
“One storage unit was literally filled to the brim with artwork she said she did not have, tapestries she said she didn’t have, and jewelry she said she didn’t have.”
“Vindictive people punishing wealthy people”
Bell detailed Lin Gosman’s post-indictment jaunts to Paris, Hong Kong, Morocco and Dubai, while allegedly conducting research for a children’s book. “
“She was spending money reserved for her husband’s creditors.”
Asst. U.S. Atty Carolyn Bell (right) is now a judge in Palm Beach. There should be more like her.
“This is at the top of the heap,” Carolyn Bell told the judge. “This is the type of bankruptcy fraud where you just go, ‘oh my god.’ This conduct, if we don’t address it, the bankruptcy system doesn’t work.”
U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp wasn’t buying it.
He sentenced her–not to 30 years–but t0 probation.
“The U.S. Attorney’s office is hailing this lie it’s the crime of the century,” said the judge.
The judge admonished the government’s vigorous prosecution of the case. “Lin Gosman was a pillar of society,” he said. “You make this sound like a fraud case!”
“My decision to spare Lin Gosman more jail time on a series of fraud charges probably will not be popular with vindictive people who want to see wealthy people punished.”
The judge sentenced her to house arrest.
Lin Gosman was beside herself. She was ecstatic.
She said of the Judge, “I can’t believe how wise and kind he is, and I appreciate the support. Why couldn’t I have found someone like him (the judge) from the beginning?”
What happened at “515 County Road” during Lin and Abe’s bankruptcy and Lin’s trial for fraud is a real Palm Beach story.
For Lin and Abe—just as it did for Paul Manafort last week—it had a happy ending. It showed that people like Dmitry Rybolovlev, Abe Gosman and Donald Trump all have one thing in common.
They’re connected. As, as we all know by now:
“Being connected means never having to say you’re sorry.”
Abe Gosman was one of Donald Trump’s Palm Beach ‘homies’
I found out later that I had been right in my suspicions about Abe Gosman, “self-made man.”
Gosman’s company, Meditrust Corp. was the nation’s largest health care real estate investment trust. More importantly it was one of only four REITs nationwide that had been “grandfathered-in” to get a huge tax break unavailable to anyone else, courtesy the United States Congress.
One of the others was Starwood Lodging Trust, owned by Barry Sternlicht, which used its special status to go on a buying spree. Many in the financial community believed its unique tax status gave Starwood a distinct advantage in a highly publicized battle with Hilton Hotels Corp. for ITT Corp.
Barry Sternlicht was a name I first became familiar with while writing “Barry & ‘the boys.’ And it wasn’t because he’d been singing too loud in church.
His chief lieutenant, for example, had somehow ended up owning Huffman Aviation in Venice, where Mohamed Atta learned to fly.
But that’s a story for another time.
Our country is corrupt and with the Internet there are more people reading stories like this one. It outrages more people and will eventually cause a major response. Judges are ruining the faith people need in our Judicial branch.