Legal process continues for the former owners of Sun Village at Cofresi

posted on: Feb 5 2010 8:38 by Royston. Viewed 348 times.


The FBI and Federal prosecutors are investigating the case in south Florida where many investors live who claim to have lost vast sums of money at the hands of Frederick and Derek Elliott, a father and son team of resort developers from Canada. The total lost by investors from Canada and Florida and the areas is reputed to be $170 million.

A report by Miami lawyer Thomas Scott, a former federal judge and U.S. Attorney, was sent to a Miami judge who then ordered the investigation be started last month.

The report alleges that money invested in timeshare units never actually reached the development, but went instead to fund the lifestyle of the Elliotts. It claims many thousands of people are affected. The report is said to include reference to  racketeering, fraud, securities violations, money laundering and tax evasion.

Frederick Elliott, his son, and 22 affiliated companies are defendants in a Miami federal civil racketeering lawsuit filed last March that gave rise to Scott’s report.

The report  says the Sun Village scheme was a “two-tier criminal enterprise.” It lays the blame with the Elliots and James B. Catledge, a Nevada-based investment consultant whose company, Impact Inc., acted as selling agents for Sun Village property. Thomas Scott says in his report that Catledge, a major Republican Party donor who dined with President George W. Bush in 2008, is  “the main architect of the Ponzi style scheme.” However some victims of the scam have claimed he has been helping them in pursuing the Elliotts to justice. Catledge is not party to the current law suit.

James Moon, the Elliotts’ Miami lawyer, filed a reply last month to the report in which he stated that Scott’s report contains “factual inaccuracies, improper legal conclusions and misleading and grossly prejudicial statements.”

The resort projects were eventually foreclosed. Investors lost all their cash when Sun Valley properties were sold at a public auction last fall. The Elliotts have stated that the properties were sold for tens of millions of dollars less than they were actually worth.
“The Elliotts have been unable (or unwilling) to explain exactly what happened to the massive amounts of funds which were collected,” the report says.
A hearing was started in Miami on Feb 1st