Federal investigators interviewed Burlington real estate mogul Tony Pomerleau last month as part of their probe into a land deal involving Jane O’Meara Sanders.
According to Pomerleau, two federal agents visited his Queen City home early last December to ask about Burlington College’s 2010 acquisition of a $10 million North Avenue campus.
“They came up and talked with me for a few minutes to half an hour,” the centenarian developer told Seven Days. He said he believed the men worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The Pomerleau interview is the most recent action to come to light in the federal inquiry, which began roughly two years ago. VTDigger.org first reported Sunday that former Burlington College board member Robin Lloyd provided sworn testimony in the matter to a grand jury on October 26. Former board chair Yves Bradley told Seven Days he spoke to an FBI agent and a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation investigator in mid-October. (That interview was first reported in December by Fox News.)
Bradley, who works for Pomerleau Real Estate, said Monday that he served as an intermediary between the federal agents and his boss.
“When they came to visit me they said, ‘Hey, would you please let Mr. Pomerleau know we’d like to speak with him if he’s willing?'” Bradley said of the FBI and FDIC agents.
Pomerleau declined to specify what the feds asked him, but he said he had little to reveal.
“There was nothing that I had with [O’Meara Sanders] that meant anything to them,” he said. Asked whether he shared anything that might incriminate O’Meara Sanders, who is married to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Pomerleau said, “No. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”
Pomerleau played a leading role in the Burlington College land deal, which O’Meara Sanders oversaw during her presidency of the now-defunct institution. According to an August 2017 report in VTDigger, Pomerleau personally advised O’Meara Sanders as she sought to buy the 33-acre campus from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington. When a $500,000 shortfall nearly caused the deal to fall through on New Year’s Eve in 2010, Pomerleau ponied up a bridge loan of that amount, VTDigger reported. He also pledged to match a $1 million commitment from another donor, though neither materialized.
Federal authorities began investigating the matter after Charlotte attorney Brady Toensing, the vice chair of the Vermont Republican Party, filed a complaint to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FDIC alleging that O’Meara Sanders had overstated the pledges the school used as collateral to secure the loan.
At least eight people associated with the college have told Seven Days that they have been contacted by federal investigators in the matter. Asked about the investigation late Sunday, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Vermont declined to comment.
O’Meara Sanders and her husband have repeatedly denied wrongdoing. The family declined to comment on the Pomerleau interview Monday.
Bradley, who has not heard from the feds since the mid-October interview, said that its focus was clear: O’Meara Sanders.
“My understanding is they’re checking into the acquisition of the college under President Sanders,” he said.
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As a parent of a former student of the now-defunct institution, I think someone should be held accountable to the students who continue to have to pay loans for an education they were never able to complete because of the misappropriations of highly privileged Board members.
Yup no one is going to say anything bad about the almighty Sanders, the crooks the liars.. No FBI agents would say “Hey, would you please let Mr. Pomerleau know we’d like to speak with him if he’s willing?'”..Come on get real. Bradley just covering.
Tony Pomerleau saying “He said he believed the men worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation.!!
He’s friends with the Sanders, he won’t say anything against them, plus he made a big commission on the deal.
All the students lost while the Sanders and others made out. . Rebecca Doughty is right people should be held accountable, Sanders are millionaires now… but don’t hold your breath waiting for them to admit to any wrongdoing.. the amounts of the pledges just magically changed all by themselves…!!!!
Rebecca, don’t let this just go away. If you recall President Trump was forced to settle a lawsuit against Trump University by former students. The student received about 80% plus of what they spent on tuition and fees at Trump U. The lawsuit was supported and pushed for by Trumps political opponents, which includes you know who; Good old Bernie.
Sander is a scumbag. Its time to lock him and his scumbag wife up. They should have to sell their assets like their lake house and Bernies 140,000 dollar sports car and pay back the people that got nothing in return from their tuition checks at Burlington College. Justice for all is a founding principle of this country and its time the Sanders crime family got what was coming to them.
#timetovotethebaldguysout
Moneybags Pomerleau is glad to trot out his name when he wants publicity for his alleged charity.
But if you want him to discuss anything of substance, he’s, like, get away from me.
He’s a caricature of himself, sad to say.
@citizen, The Sanders are just like all the Clintons, greedy, liars, frauds, sneaky, think they are above the law….funneling money, Sanders wants to have a Sanders foundation, just like the crooked “pay to play” Clintons and daughter foundation.
Donna you are so right about Bernie and his sticky fingered wife. The only difference between the Sanders and the Clintons is Bernie was not smart enough to steal a primary. I still laugh my ass off every time I think of poor old Bernie (well not that poor he was paid to be silent) sitting at the convention crying like the little bitch he is. What a sell out not even man enough to stand up for himself when he knew he had be screwed. He needs to start a #metoo tag because he too was a victim of Bill Clinton and his sexist wife. Trump 2020 here we come. The dems are done.