Million dollar real estate

A New York real estate broker was sentenced to nine months of house arrest this week for paying a former shelter operator hundreds of thousands of dollars in a yearslong bribery scheme to profit from city funding meant for homeless people.

The broker, Sheina Levin, 61, owned a real estate company in Brooklyn. As the ranks of homeless people swelled in the city in recent years and the need for shelters grew more urgent, she paid a prominent shelter operator, Victor Rivera, more than $830,000 in kickbacks so his organization would lease property she controlled, federal prosecutors said.

Mr. Rivera, the former chief executive of the Bronx Parent Housing Network, pleaded guilty last year to federal crimes related to the bribery scheme and was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison . Mr. Rivera’s financial entanglements with Ms. Levin, as well as wide-ranging accusations of sexual assault and harassment against him, were first revealed in a New York Times investigation in 2021 .

Ms. Levin was sentenced on Wednesday after pleading guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud for her role in the pay-to-play scheme, which stretched from 2019 to 2021.

“Her felony conviction and the sentence imposed today show that those who put personal greed ahead of the needs of vulnerable city residents will face serious consequences,” said Jocelyn E. Strauber, commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation, which investigated the case with agents from the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan.

In court filings, Ms. Levin described how Mr. Rivera first solicited bribes from her while they were working together to sublease several buildings she controlled in the Bronx as homeless shelters.

As the subleases were being arranged, Mr. Rivera demanded that he personally receive a cut of Ms. Levin’s rental profits, and she complied, she said.

“I knew that doing so would enable the subleases to go forward and that these payments were improper,” Ms. Levin said. “Mr. Rivera knew that I would make a profit on these arrangements due to my direct lease agreements with the owners of those properties.”

Prosecutors said Ms. Levin disguised the payments to Mr. Rivera as consulting fees to a bogus company run by his son, and that he used the kickbacks to make mortgage payments on his home.

After Mr. Rivera helped found the Bronx Parent Housing Network two decades ago, he built the organization into one of the largest shelter operators in New York, netting $274 million in city money from 2017 to 2021. But as the money flowed in, Mr. Rivera treated the nonprofit group as his personal domain, The Times found, collecting an annual salary of $453,000, driving a Mercedes-Benz leased by the organization and steering millions of dollars in contracts to friends and associates.

Mr. Rivera demanded kickbacks from some of those associates as well, including a construction company and a security guard firm, according to prosecutors. But the bribes he received from Ms. Levin, his one-time partner in a separate housing venture, were the most substantial.

The felony charge Ms. Levin pleaded guilty to carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison. But prosecutors recommended that she be sentenced to house arrest and two years of supervised release because they said she made “sincere efforts” to aid the investigation into Mr. Rivera.

She also agreed to forfeit more than $790,000 and pay more than $838,000 to the Bronx Parent Housing Network.

In a statement, Ms. Levin’s lawyer said Mr. Rivera “manipulated her dedication to servicing the homeless population into supporting his own personal corruption.”

“Ms. Levin acknowledges her terrible mistake in going along with Victor’s demand for kickbacks,” said the lawyer, Michael Farkas, “and she is committed to making full amends for her conduct.”

Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. The 72-story office building in the heart of the financial district. The Trump International Hotel overlooking Central Park.

These are Donald J. Trump’s flagship New York properties, embodiments of the rise of a developer who parlayed real estate riches into reality television fame, and ultimately, the White House.

Now, Mr. Trump could lose his grip on all three buildings after a state judge on Tuesday ruled that he had persistently committed fraud by inflating the value of his assets. The judge sided with New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who had brought a civil case against the former president.

As a punishment, the judge, Arthur F. Engoron, effectively revoked Mr. Trump’s licenses to operate those properties — and potentially an even broader swath of the family business that Mr. Trump built over the last half-century. The ruling left much of his New York operation hanging in the balance.

Mr. Trump is expected to appeal and has already sued Justice Engoron himself, who has been a thorn in the side of the Trump lawyers for more than a year. An appeals court could rule as soon as Thursday on that lawsuit, which accuses the judge of ignoring a previous decision that could bar some evidence in the case.

The coming ruling in turn could forestall a trial of the fraud case that was set to start next week to determine whether Mr. Trump should pay a fine and how much as well as additional punishments. Ms. James is seeking $250 million.

In a Wednesday hearing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers pleaded for clarity, asking Justice Engoron to explain exactly what the effect of his ruling would be.

The judge demurred. After huddling with his law clerk, Allison Greenfield, he said that he appreciated the Trump team’s concern but was “not prepared to just issue a ruling right now.”

He instead granted a request from one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Christopher M. Kise, who asked for extra time to nominate an independent authority who could implement the judge’s order. Mr. Kise suggested he was inclined to nominate a monitor who has already been overseeing Mr. Trump’s business, Barbara S. Jones.

If the judge’s decision stands, there are two paths forward for the business known as the Trump Organization.

The strictest possible reading of Justice Engoron’s order could spell the end of the Trump Organization as we know it, forcing a sell-off of several properties and imposing a death sentence on its New York operations.

More likely, legal experts said, is a period in which Mr. Trump would be unable to operate his properties, which would be handed to a court-appointed chief executive, potentially Ms. Jones. Such an arrangement would preserve Mr. Trump’s ownership while preventing him and his two adult sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, who are also defendants, from running the machinery of their empire without permission from the court.

It would be as though the court revoked Mr. Trump’s driver’s license: He would still own a fleet of vehicles and could be driven around, but would be barred from getting behind the wheel himself.

Even this would represent a major blow to the former president, underscoring the power of a little-known state law that Ms. James used to bring her case, accusing him of inflating his net worth by billions of dollars to secure favorable loans from banks. Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the banks made money from Mr. Trump, who never defaulted on a payment.

Yet the law allows the attorney general to pursue “persistent fraud” without having to show that a defendant actually intended to defraud anyone, or that their actions resulted in financial loss — a lower bar than most fraud cases. It also provides for more drastic remedies, empowering Ms. James to recover ill-gotten gains as well as to seek the cancellation of business certificates that companies need to operate in New York.

The attorney general’s office used the same statute in a previous, successful case against Mr. Trump’s for-profit education venture, Trump University.

Although Justice Engoron had the authority to cancel the Trump family business’s certificates in New York, several legal experts described it as a rare step.

Steven M. Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who served as a top aide to Andrew M. Cuomo when he was attorney general, said such actions are only taken “in extreme cases involving persistent and pervasive fraudulent conduct.”

“Think of it as the court concluding that this corporate citizen has consistently behaved in a manner that forfeiture of the privilege of operating in New York is warranted,” said Mr. Cohen, an adjunct corporate law professor at New York Law School.

Mr. Trump — who moved to Florida after his presidency and has many properties outside New York — has denied wrongdoing and attacked both Ms. James and Justice Engoron, noting that they are both Democrats. In a social media post on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called Justice Engoron “deranged.”

Mr. Kise in his own statement called Justice Engoron’s ruling “outrageous” and “completely disconnected from the facts and governing law.” He said that the judge ignored “basic legal, accounting and business principles.”

Justice Engoron’s courtroom demeanor can be unusual. He brings more levity to the proceedings than most judges, often cracking jokes and discouraging members of the public from standing when he enters the courtroom.

He is fond of popular culture references, albeit dated ones. At Wednesday’s hearing, he told an anecdote that appears in the 1971 film adaptation of “Fiddler on the Roof.” His ruling on Tuesday cited “Duck Soup,” a Marx Brothers film from 1933.

And he openly consults with his clerk, Ms. Greenfield, and permits her to ask questions of the lawyers appearing before them, a practice that reflects her influence over the proceedings.

Justice Engoron has adopted a consistently skeptical stance toward Mr. Trump and his legal team, which sought unsuccessfully to move the case out of his courtroom. Last year, the judge held Mr. Trump in contempt, imposing a $110,000 fine on the former president, and in his ruling on Tuesday, Justice Engoron levied sanctions on Mr. Trump’s lawyers for making arguments that he had previously rejected. He ordered each to pay $7,500.

The blows may keep coming. Ms. James is seeking to permanently bar Mr. Trump from running a business in New York and blocking him for five years from applying for loans from a financial institution registered in the state. Only once the civil trial is over will the full picture of the consequences emerge.

Ms. James said in a statement on Tuesday, “We look forward to presenting the rest of our case at trial.”

The confusion surrounding Justice Engoron’s order to strip Mr. Trump of control over some properties stems partly from the company’s unorthodox corporate structure. The Trump Organization, in reality, is only a name for a constellation of hundreds of different legal entities that comprise Mr. Trump’s properties, ventures and other assets. Each is owned by Mr. Trump’s trust, and many are outside New York, and thus almost certainly beyond the reach of this case.

But every one of Mr. Trump’s New York properties, nearly a dozen of them, could be swept up in Justice Engoron’s decision.

He ordered that every Trump entity that Ms. James named as a defendant, including the financial district office building at 40 Wall Street, lose its business certificate. He also canceled the certificates of “any other entity controlled or beneficially owned” by Mr. Trump, which is a broader universe of New York properties that includes Trump Tower, the commercial space inside his hotel overlooking Central Park, a golf club in Westchester County and residential towers on the East Side of Manhattan.

The judge even expanded on the punishment that Ms. James had sought, canceling the certificates of any entity controlled by Mr. Trump’s sons.

Justice Engoron’s decision could remove the certificate of the Trump Corporation, the entity that employs hundreds of people in Mr. Trump’s corporate offices, as well as the Trump Organization. The organization’s demise would be more symbolic than sweeping, given that it is only a brand name, not an owner of property or an employer of people.

At the hearing on Wednesday, Justice Engoron made an understated reference to the sweeping nature of his ruling, even as he declined to answer questions about its final consequences.

“The contour of the case has changed significantly since yesterday,” he said, mildly, as the hearing began.

On a typical weekend in the spring, summer and early fall, Martha’s Vineyard transforms into a wedding haven, with tall white tents dotting green lawns and rolling farm fields that often overlook the scenic shoreline. Situated off the coast of southeastern Massachusetts, the Vineyard has become a popular destination for couples seeking a scenic seaside escape for their nuptials.

The Vineyard’s economy runs largely on tourism and the wedding industry is big business. In its most recent report, Island Weddings Magazine noted that in 2018 42 percent of the weddings hosted on the Vineyard exceeded $75,000, and 2 percent of them cost more than $200,000 . (Nationwide, wedding costs averaged $24,723 in 2018, according to the Wedding Report; they reached $30,000 last year, according to the Knot.)

Jim Eddy, the owner of Big Sky Tent and Party Rentals in Edgartown, estimates that they work on 10 to 20 weddings each weekend during June and September, the busiest months for weddings on the island. He estimates that there are about 30 weddings happening on the island each weekend in those months.

No one can say exactly how many weddings are held on the island each year. Couples aren’t required to get a marriage license in the town where they wed (though they must apply within the state ). “It’s through incidental knowledge that we hear about all these weddings going on,” said Carolina Cooney, the executive director of the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce.

Couples are drawn to the Vineyard’s beaches, quaint villages and vast wildlife reserves, and more often than not, there is a family connection to the island. This was the case for Molly Tilton, 26, an art teacher from Sandwich, Mass., who was married in Edgartown this August at a cost of around $70,000. Her husband’s family owns a house in Katama, a neighborhood in Edgartown. “It was like a vacation where all my closest friends and family were taking over the island,” Ms. Tilton said.

While the Massachusetts island provides a charming backdrop for a picturesque wedding, life on the Vineyard is not always a celebration for some year-round residents who make a living bringing these grand weddings to life.

Often out of view for all these events are the local workers who hoist tents like sails and run the weddings like a tight ship, doing all the prep work and serving, then dismantling and cleaning up long after guests have left. They witness all the extravagance from a different perspective.

“I work the half-million to million-dollar wedding bracket,” said Aubrey Sirois of Aubrey Maria Designs , a floral design company in Edgartown. Ms. Sirois, 40, initially came to the island to work to pay for college and has now lived there full-time for about five years. This year, she did flowers for about 60 weddings and elopements on the island.

In the course of her work, Ms. Sirois and her team of 10 have learned to improvise. She once recalled getting the wrong head count for boutonnieres. “So I had an employee take a speaker wire out of their car and use it to wire an orchid to make a boutonniere,” Ms. Sirois said. She learned tricks like this, she said, from the tight-knit community of island wedding workers. “I really appreciate the camaraderie,” she said.

This sense of community is also why Willy Nevin works hard to stay on the Vineyard. Mr. Nevin, 30, was born and raised on the island. In addition to his job as a credit analyst at Martha’s Vineyard Bank, he works for Buckley’s Gourmet Catering on the weekends, earning $35 an hour before tips, to help pay his rent. Buckley’s Gourmet Catering was hired for 20 weddings this year, and Mr. Nevin worked seven of them. “I want to make it work because I do love living here,” he said. “My whole family lives here.”

But living on the Vineyard can be challenging for many locals. The island’s year-round population of about 20,000 swells to around 90,000 in the summer, according to the Martha’s Vineyard Commission. The surge of tourists during peak season often leads to traffic jams, packed sidewalks, and long lines everywhere from the grocery stores to the gas stations. These inconveniences are bearable, Mr. Nevin said. But the flood of seasonal residents has also raised the cost of coastal living, which has made it difficult to find affordable housing.

In July, the median home sale price on Martha’s Vineyard was $1.3 million, according to LINK, a multiple listing service that provides real estate data for the island. And about 60 percent of the housing stock is now made up of “seasonal vacant homes,” according to the National Association of Realtors 2021 Vacation Home Counties Report .

Besides dealing with housing challenges, workers have also felt disheartened by the seemingly limitless wedding budgets. Ms. Sirois said her clients sometimes spend “$20,000 to $40,000 to $50,000 on wedding flowers and they’re composted the next day.” While the large budgets let her stretch herself creatively, she said, the numbers are “kind of insane.”

Waste is also an issue for local residents. Eva Faber, 29, and her girlfriend, Lexie Roth, 36, started Goldie’s Rotisserie , a catering business with a food truck, in 2021. “I don’t live in that way,” she said, referring to how flowers and “plastic trinkets” are routinely discarded at the end of the weddings they cater. How she currently lives: in a 16-by-16-foot barn that she and Ms. Roth outfitted with windows, electricity and an outhouse.

Ms. Faber recognizes that the Vineyard functions as a business draw. She estimated that weddings and related events make up around half of their business: they book two or three weddings per year and often work welcome parties, rehearsal dinners or brunches. For full-service wedding catering, they charge about $125 to $200 per person and about $5,000 to $30,000 for private events.

But after paying for expenses like staff, kitchen rent, and food costs, Ms. Faber said their income “just supports the high cost of living” and being able to get through the winter when business is slow.

While she said she feels lucky to have any housing at all on the island, it is difficult working from morning until past midnight and then “coming home from these events and wanting to shower and be comfortable and being faced with your own means.”

“The reason I want to go through all this madness to live here is the same reason people spend $10 million on a wedding here,” Ms. Faber said. (She said she worked a wedding years back rumored to have such a budget.) “It’s a special place.” Ms. Faber said. Even so, she added, “I wouldn’t live here if my family wasn’t here.”

Tom Ellis, 33, also grew up on the island and has tried to remain there into adulthood — working first as a wedding bartender and then as a wedding photographer, in addition to his work as a filmmaker. “It’s home,” he said. “It’s hard to describe what home feels like but that’s it.”

He sees the island’s numerous visitors as a blessing and a curse. “Tourism is kind of a poison pill for most economies,” he said. But, he said, “given the way things are, weddings are almost entirely positive for the island economy. The wedding vendors, they’re all able to survive the winter.”

His partner Liz Volchok, 30, worked for the Island Housing Trust as the affordable housing development manager from February 2021 to December 2022, but the cost and unpredictability of their own housing became too much to deal with. “The irony wasn’t lost on anybody,” Mr. Ellis said, and they decided in January to move to San Francisco, another high-rent area, where he said he’s finding a much larger inventory of available housing.

For some couples getting married on the Vineyard, going off the island for vendors can be a way for them to save money, too, since these businesses may charge less for their services because of lower operating costs.

“You’re maybe getting a better price,” Ms. Sirois acknowledged, “but these local vendors are making sure their employees can pay their mortgage.”