A tax fraud case was dropped in New York last Wednesday against a former associate of President Trump. The case was made against a Russian-American Businessman by the name of Felix Sater and the company that he confounded, Bayrock. The case was filed as a Qui Tam which means that an anonymous whistleblower files as a representative of the state. Once filed, the attorney general’s office can choose to get involved or not.
The whistleblower in this case was a Lawyer named Fred Oberlander. This Lawyer has previously represented Jody Kriss, a former business partner of Sater, in a lawsuit against the company, Bayrock.
On Wednesday, Oberlander acknowledged that the information that caused the qui Tam complaint that he filed was stricken from the original complaint by federal judges. An attorney that was present at the case, stated that Oberlanders argument didn’t go well because of how he used his information. This was the cause of the cases dismissal that was later confirmed by Sater and his Lawyer.
There was a letter sent last year by the Attorney General’s office, to the Supreme Court, saying that the press release that Oberlander issued claiming that the Attorney General’s office approved of the case when in reality they did not and had no intention of getting involved. In the attempt to protect the rights of the state, the attorney general’s office said that they would monster the case as it moved forward.
The case has been dismissed on the merits rather than on the grounds of procedure, according to Saters Lawyer. He also added that Oberlander and his associate, another lawyer named Richard Lerner was sent to the department of Justice two times for contempt because of their misbehavior in the case against Sater. Lerner plans to appeal the court’s choice to dismiss the case. Kriss originally brought the lawsuit against Sater and the company back in 2010 and claims to have no involvement in the current case. Kriss conveyed that Bayrock is mostly owned by the mob and operated by them and is constantly committing crimes similar to the crimes that they are accused of in this case. Kriss made his first accusation against Sater and Bayrocks founder, Tevfik Arif claiming that they cheated him out of millions of dollars through misconduct of business.
This month, a judge in New York made the ruling that the case could continue, but only as a case of business fraudulence.
Within Kriss’ complaint, Sater and Tevfik Arif began business dealings with the Trump Organization back in 2003 to market projects with the Trump brand without informing Trump of Sater’s past crimes. Trump stated that his company wouldn’t have had any dealings with Arif’s company on the development of Trump SoHo if he knew about Saters criminal past. Trump said that he didn’t even know what Sater looked like, in spite of the fact that Bayrocks main office was two floors below Trumps in Trump Tower.
An anonymous person stated that Sater and Trump had meetings every week. This person remained anonymous for fear of being punished by Sater or the company.
According to Sater, Trump met with him constantly and Kriss later said that Trump valued Saters loyalty and his Russian connections.
In 2007, Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
