Sen. Stevens Scored Big In Florida Condo Deal, Prosecutors AllegeSen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) flipped a Florida condo deal to turn $5,000 into about $100,000 back in 2001 when the housing boom was heating up, according to newly filed court documents.
Federal prosecutors are not charging the sitting senator with any additional crimes, but they are laying out the new allegations in an effort to show a pattern of lying on his Senate financial disclosure reports.
Prosecutors say the details of Stevens’ deal amount to an interest-free loan that he should have publicly disclosed.
The Anchorage Daily News first reported the details on Stevens’ deal this morning:
On Feb. 4, 2001, Stevens and his wife, Catherine, signed a contract on a pre-construction condominium just north of Miami priced at $360,000, prosecutors said.
While most buyers put down 10 percent, or $36,000, Stevens only put down $5,000. One of the developers fronted the senator $31,000 in an interest-free loan that he paid to an escrow company “for the benefit of ‘Theodore and Catherine Stevens,’ ” according to the motion.
About six months later, the developer, referred to in court papers only as “Person C” contacted Stevens and told him the condo could be flipped “as I told you,” according to the motion.
In August 2001, Stevens sold the contract on the condo for $515,000, later paid off the interest-free loan and retained a windfall of about $100,000, prosecutors say.
That’s not illegal per se, but prosecutors say Stevens should have disclosed the deal, according to the prosecutors’ motion.
Part VII of the 2001 United States Senate Financial Disclosure Form required Stevens to disclose any liability that he “owed to any creditor which exceeded $10,000 at any time during” calendar year 2001. Although Stevens knowingly carried debt on a $31,000, interest-free loan from his personal friend for more than 10 months during 2001, Stevens did not list such a liability on his 2001 Financial Disclosure Form.
There’s a photo here of the condo in a high-rise in Bay Harbor Island along the so-called Gold Coast, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense.
