The former Vornado leasing executive accused of stealing more than $9 million from the firm allegedly created fake brokerages and burner accounts to bill the REIT for phony services over a 15-year period, according to federal prosecutors.
Jared Solomon was arrested in December and charged by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York with stealing $9.5 million from his employer. The feds do not identify the company, but sources told The Real Deal that it is Vornado Realty Trust.
According to the prosecutors, Solomon defrauded the company by creating fake brokerage companies named Margoux Media and Cobalt Advisors, and then submitting invoices to Vornado for work he claimed the companies had performed.
“The defendant carried out his fraud scheme by using fake commercial real estate agreements — mainly fake broker agreements, among other types of agreements — and fake invoices that called for Victim Company-1 to issue checks and wire payments to one of three purported real estate broker companies,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.
The third company is an actual brokerage, though prosecutors said the firm had no knowledge that Solomon was submitting invoices in its name.
On several fake agreements, Solomon allegedly copied and pasted a signature he had access to from an executive who did a bona fide licensing agreement with Vornado in 2015, and then claimed the executive was the chief financial officer of the fictitious Margoux Media.
Solomon allegedly used fake email addresses and burner phone numbers to communicate with higher-ups at Vornado who had concerns about the payments. After the company made a $1.4 million payment to the Margoux account in 2019, Solomon allegedly used the money to buy a pricey Manhattan home.
“Only one week later, the defendant, in turn, wired that amount, plus nearly $1 million in additional fraud proceeds that the defendant had previously obtained from Victim Company-1, to a real estate attorney to finance part of the purchase of a $4 million apartment located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan,” prosecutors wrote.
Solomon and his attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
The Southern District attorney’s office revealed the new details earlier this month when responding to Solomon’s motion to dismiss the charges. The prosecutors refuted his argument that the indictment was overly vague, stating that it met the required standard.
Prosecutors earlier this year told the judge overseeing the case that they had reached an agreement in principle for Solomon to change his not guilty plea. But since then, the defendant has changed attorneys and no formal agreement has been reached.
If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.
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