An Arkansas man received one to two years’ probation Friday for his role in a scam that defrauded Don Sinex and the Burlington Town Center of nearly $30,000.
Michael Marshall, 61, pleaded no contest to possession of stolen property worth more than $900, a felony. Two other charges, identity theft and false impersonation, were dismissed.
Marshall’s attorney, Margaret Jansch, argued that Marshall had unwittingly been swept up in a more complicated scam targeting the Burlington developer.
On December 5, 2016, Jennifer Villamil, vice president of finance for Sinex’s firm Devonwood Investors, received an email that appeared to be from Sinex, her boss. It directed her to transfer $29,348 from TD Bank to Marshall’s bank account at Bear State Bank in Mena, Ark.
Jansch described the scam as “a very sophisticated operation.” The email came on a day when Sinex was out of the office, she pointed out. It also instructed Villamil to “code [the transfer] as administrative expenses.” Villamil had told investigators that the language appeared consistent with Sinex’s previous communications and did not make her suspicious.
Villamil made the transfer to Marshall’s account. She realized the request was fraudulent when Sinex asked her about it a month later. The sender’s email address was one letter different from Sinex’s.
Marshall, who sported glasses, a plaid shirt and shoulder-length, wispy brown hair, had flown in from Arkansas to appear in court, according to Jansch.
Jansch said her client did not know the money was stolen and was not capable of such a complicated scam. “He’s not himself a sophisticated person,” she said.
She said he had been told to receive the funds from a woman he met on an online dating site. The woman, whom police were unable to find, allegedly told Marshall the cash was meant for a family member. Marshall was to receive $2,000 for his effort.
Court documents indicate that Villamil received another request, sent from the same fraudulent email account, for $10,000 in January. Police at the time were already investigating the case.
Marshall has no known ties to Vermont, according to court documents. According to deputy Chittenden County state’s attorney Susan Hardin, police were unable to track the fraudulent email to Marshall or to anyone else.
Marshall will return to Arkansas to serve his probation, with credit for the 81 days of jail time he already served. He also agreed to pay back the $2,000 he received from the scam.
Sinex did not appear in court Friday, but had advocated for more jail time and fines for Marshall and did not agree with the deal, Hardin noted. The developer was “very upset,” she said, primarily because his insurance didn’t cover the loss. Hardin said that Sinex’s employees did not receive end-of-year and holiday bonuses because of the scam.
It’s the latest in a series of legal and financial snags for Sinex. His project — which has been rebranded CityPlace Burlington — will include 14 stories of housing, retail and office space in downtown Burlington. But it has been quiet recently. He has yet to proceed with foundation work, despite requesting special permission from the city council to move forward. City officials have started to push Sinex about the pace of the massive project.
As of last month, Sinex had not secured construction financing for the redevelopment. He did not immediately return requests for comment.
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Aww, poor Don got a taste of his own medicine
Aww, did poor Don get a taste of his own medicine?
Sinex is crying about getting swindled out of 30k? I can’t wait to hear the crying from City Hall once they figure out his whole project is a scam.
So THAT’S why it was delayed…
That guy stepped out of the pages of an R. Crumb comic.
So some poor sap from Arkansas gets catfished and unknowingly gets sucked into a plot he has no idea about really… and the rich guy from NY wants to throw him in jail and throw away the key for 2K??… real compassionate fella… and then he turns around and uses the loss as an excuse to not pay his employees a holiday bonus??? And the mayor and the city are in business with a guy who showcases this lack of character????
So Chittenden County State”s Attorney, Susan Hardin, says that the employees didn’t receive their bonus because of the fraud. The State’s Attorneys job is to prosecute the defendant, and to get the most severe punishment for the crime as possible if the defendant is found guilty This ridiculous statement has no relavance to the charges made. That information had to have come from the plaintiff Just because Don Sinex said it, it doesn’t make it so.
This project, the people involved and their integrity just keeps getting better and better. . . almost.
Sinex pulls a Scrooge on his employees because of this? I’m sure the Sinex family isn’t suffering. I thought Dandy Don was a big time developer from NYC who had the whole thing sewn up. That is the fable Miro is still pushing.
14 stories equals One Big Lie.
Keep bending over for this, Burlington, maybe you’ll catch on eventually. When you allow Neo-liberal hucksters to run things, this is what you get.
I see that the anti-everything, jealous-of-anyone-else’s-success crowd is out in force.
Someone even thought his anti-Sinex remark was so clever he posted it twice.
Ahhh poor little whinny Donny Sinex out 2k not 30 he got the rest back.. 2k is chicken feed to him,, His scam to Burlington isn’t working?? He’s holding out to scam more money? Maybe his money is being held by the IRS for some scam deals??? Who knows..just seem like a really sleazy deal
Sinex did not appear in court Friday, but had advocated for more jail time and fines for Marshall and did not agree with the deal, Hardin noted. The developer was “very upset,” she said, primarily because his insurance didn’t cover the loss. Hardin said that Sinex’s employees did not receive end-of-year and holiday bonuses because of the scam.
What an absolute scum bag of a person. Take note of what kind of person Sinex is at a very basic human level before you live in one of his condos, rent space from him, or go to work for him.
Matt Thorsens poignant photo that accompanies the article perfectly captures the raw emotion of a visually “very upset” real estate titan who’s been taken to the cleaners by some dude searchin’ for rural romance on an Arkansas online dating website.
Sinex shares the deep anguish that any one of us would feel when apprised that a crafty conman from Mena – some low-down Arkansas polecat who apparently emptied the formerly flush Devonwood piggy-bank of its last $29,348, thereby making off with Every Penny of the money earmarked for the worker’s hard-earned Christmas bonus money – would escape the hangman’s noose.
In arguing for a Tough Sentence that includes Hard Time in the Big House, Don Sinex displayed the steely resolve of “Tough Hombres everywhere – he clearly wasnt taken in by casual “Ah shucks, good ole boy” carriage of this” wily southern grifter.
Recall that Mena, Arkansas was the hub for CIA-funded flights running drugs and guns to and from Central America in the 80s, which came to light when the Iran-Contra scandal broke. Make no mistake – Thats no Jed Clampett casually posing for photos at the courthouse. No Cousin Roscoe. No Sir, that looks to be some serious deep-cover hillbilly tradecraft, and while Don sadly had no assets left to cover his employees’ hard-earned holiday bonuses, hes obviously not buying the whole “He’s not himself a sofisticated person” charade portrayed by the defense. Not for $29,348 of stolen Christmas bonus money, he ain’t.
Michael Marshall, 61, better watch out. Sinex is capable of leaving a smoldering hole in the middle of Mena. Everyone is lucky he only destroyed Christmas for his employees as a show of what happens if you cross Don Sinex.
I suspect that the employee holiday bonus heist was a particularly cruel twist of fate for Don’s son Jonathan one of but four Devonwood employees listed on the company website – who probably wondered: “Papa, why did the mean man from Mena steal everything in Santa’s sleigh?
One envisions traumatic childhood memories dredged up from Christmas past at the Sinex estate – of eagerly bounding down a sweeping travertine marble staircase on Christmas morn only to discover a forelorn, empty stocking dangling from a nail, utterly bereft of presents. And a pious admonishment from a stern father that ” Santa knows who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, son. And from a legal standpoint, boy, presents are a discretionary holiday bonus, and most assuredly not an entitlement. In the plus column, Tiny Tim, er …. um …. Jon-Jon, I get to carry the loss forward on the books, and you avoid reportable taxable gains for the current fiscal year.
Need anymore proof that DS is a heartless, cheap, mean, prick?
Furious hes out some $ this multimillionaire takes it out on a hapless shmuck and his employees.
Imagine the scene in the office the day he figured this out.
So glad mr. mayor-developer-in-chief hopped into bed with him and gave him whatever he wanted for his out of scale behemoth mall makeover.