[M]ANCHESTER — The president of the firm that developed the Taconic Hotel in Manchester village has been indicted on federal bank fraud charges involving incidents allegedly occurring in Florida from 2006-09.
George Heaton, 73, of West Palm Beach, Florida, whose Heaton Companies developed the 87-room Manchester hotel, was one of three people indicted in late February by a federal grand jury, according to an announcement by federal prosecutors and investigators.
The indictment does not suggest any links to development of the $30 million Taconic Hotel in Manchester, which opened in December 2015 at the site of the former Village Country Inn and an adjacent property. Heaton Companies has developed numerous properties over more than four decades, in Florida and other states.
Also named in the indictment were Deborah Dentry Baggett, 54, of Greenville, Tennessee, formerly of Palm Beach County, and Eric Granitur, 59, of Vero Beach, Florida, according to the news release.
The nine-count indictment alleges “a conspiracy to commit bank fraud and various substantive bank fraud offenses,” the release states.
The statement refers to an alleged conspiracy “to perpetrate a complex mortgage fraud scheme against various FDIC-insured lenders by concealing incentives offered and paid to buyers of condominium units at the Vero Beach Hotel and Club in Vero Beach, a luxury ocean-front condotel developed by Palm Beach County-based real estate developer George Heaton.”
One of Heaton’s listed attorneys in the Florida case, Jack Goldberger, of Atterbury, Goldberger & Weiss, of West Palm Beach, said Friday in an emailed statement: “Given that charges are pending Mr. Heaton cannot comment. However, we have entered a plea of not guilty and intend to take the case to trial.”
According to the federal indictment and court paperwork in the case, Granitur was indicted on three counts by a federal grand jury in September, and Granitur, Heaton and Baggett were named in a superseding nine-count indictment issued Feb. 28.
According to allegations in the superseding indictment: “The defendants and their co-conspirators concealed and misrepresented the amount of seller paid incentives, including cash-to-close, cash rebates, and seller-provided cash deposits, and transferred incentive money through a Palm Beach County law firm’s bank account in order to conceal the fact that the funds were coming from the seller, and not the buyer, as was required by the mortgage lenders.”
The statement accuses Baggett of several instances of taking large sums of money, without permission, from the bank account of another client of her accounting business to use for deposits and down payments for condo purchases.
It also alleges Baggett forged client names on sale and purchase contracts and provided the personal financial information of those other clients without their permission, “all to give defendant Heaton’s commercial lender the false impression that he had obtained actual buyers for the units, in order to maintain construction financing.”
The fraud scheme allegedly caused financial institutions to fund mortgage loans totaling more than $20 million, prosecutors said.
If convicted, according to the government’s statement, the defendants face a statutory maximum term of 30 years in prison, a $1 million fine, and mandatory restitution on each count.
The Taconic Hotel is managed by Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, based in San Francisco, which did not return messages seeking comment.
The New England Regional Center for Economic Development, an EB-5 facilitator approved by U.S. Customs and Immigration Services, lists the hotel among its projects.
According to the Heaton Companies website, more than half the funding for the Taconic Hotel came from the EB-5 program, which allows foreign investors to apply for permanent U.S. residency if they make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in this country.
Heaton Companies worked with a local partner, Clark French, and Boston financial partner Janet Jiang of First Cambridge Capital on the Taconic Hotel project.
The former Village Country Inn had been vacant for several years and was razed to make way for the hotel.
The Manchester Journal reported that Clark paid $335,000 for the Village Country Inn site and $210,000 for the adjacent property.
Heaton Companies’ other holdings include Eagle Mountain House in Jackson, New Hampshire, and residential holdings in Florida including Tarpon Flats on North Hutchinson Island, Old Oak Lane in Vero Beach and Maison Matecumbe in Islamorada, according to its website.
The announcement of the charges was made by U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, as well as agents from the inspector general’s office of the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the FBI.
The case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph A. Capone.
