Michael Goldberg just can’t quit Bill Stenger.
Years after Goldberg took charge of the properties at the center of the Jay Peak Resort fraud, the court-appointed receiver continues to turn to Stenger, a former president of the resort who reached a plea deal in the case. Months after Stenger was released from federal prison, he is serving as a public representative for Goldberg.
Stenger attended a meeting last week in the town of Jay with other community officials regarding the development of a property between Cross Road and Revoir Flat Road. That property, not far from the town offices in Jay, had previously belonged to Ariel Quiros, the former owner of Jay Peak Resort.
Quiros, who also was convicted for his role in the scandal, is currently serving a five-year sentence in federal prison. Quiros surrendered the property to Goldberg and his receivership as part of an $84 million settlement he reached with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve civil claims brought against him.
Ellen Fox, project manager of the Missisquoi River Basin Association, was among those in attendance, along with Jay Selectboard Chair David Sanders, other local officials and residents, and Stenger.
According to a copy of the meeting notes Fox emailed to some participants following the meeting and which were obtained by VTDigger, Stenger is listed as “representing Michael Goldberg, Jay Peak Receivership.”
“Bill is representing Michael Goldberg and is tasked with responding to any interest in the property,” the meeting notes read. “It is the receiver’s responsibility to maximize the purchase price.”
No final decisions about the property were made at the meeting, according to the notes, which state that another meeting on the topic would take place Jan. 18.
According to the notes, Stenger “encouraged the attendees to create a mixed-use plan with community support.”
Fox said Thursday the meeting brought together parties to discuss how the property might be used in the future as well as to maintain the integrity of the floodplain.
“He was the representative for the owner of the property,” Fox said of Stenger. “The project itself is really a community-driven idea.”
Such projects, Fox said, generally require a great deal of time to come together and the patience of a property owner.
Stenger, reached Thursday, said he was an attendee at the meeting looking into what to do with the property moving forward.
“He authorized me to attend, take notes and report back,” Stenger said of Goldberg.
Asked if he was being paid by Goldberg, Stenger replied, “That’s not relevant.”
Stenger said that he has worked for Goldberg on an “individual basis” and “project-by-project,” adding, “If you want to talk to him you’re welcome to do so.”
Goldberg did not return phone and email messages Thursday seeking comment.
Goldberg has long been a Stenger backer. He spoke at Stenger’s sentencing in April 2022, telling the judge that he first met Stenger in the lobby of Hotel Jay shortly after Goldberg was appointed receiver by a court in April 2016.
“I told him I could use his help,” Goldberg recalled, if Stenger agreed to be “fully cooperative” and “never lied.”
Over that time, Goldberg told the judge, he found Stenger completely trustworthy.
The receiver paid Stenger $50 an hour for his work until the federal grand jury returned an indictment against Stenger in 2019. At that point, Goldberg said in court, the optics were not good, and he terminated Stenger. However, even without payment, Stenger continued to assist Goldberg on some projects.
Now, it appears, Stenger is back in Goldberg’s fold — publicly.
“Don’t try to make something out of this that it’s not,” Stenger told VTDigger on Thursday.
“You attacked me for 10 years, OK,” he said, adding, “I simply attend the meeting, take notes and report back to Michael.”
Federal regulators brought civil enforcement actions against Quiros and Stenger in April 2016, accusing the two developers of misusing $200 million of the more than $350 million they raised over nearly a decade from foreign investors through the federal EB-5 visa program.
The money was raised to fund a series of upgrades at Jay Peak Resort, including new hotels and condos, as well as other development projects in the Northeast Kingdom.
One of those projects was a proposed biomedical research facility in Newport, known as AnC Bio Vermont. The more than $100 million project never got off the ground, despite raising roughly $80 million from 160-plus foreign EB-5 investors seeking permanent U.S. residency through their investments.
The SEC later termed that project “nearly a complete fraud.”
Stenger, Quiros and Bill Kelly, a key adviser to Quiros, were eventually indicted on federal charges related to that failed project in May 2019.
Stenger later reached a deal with federal prosecutors, agreeing to plead guilty to a single charge of making a false statement to the government about the biomedical research facility project. Additional charges, including several fraud counts, were dismissed as part of the agreement.
Stenger was sentenced in April 2022 by federal Judge Geoffrey Crawford to 18 months in prison. At that sentencing hearing, Crawford called Stenger the face of the project as well as its most ardent cheerleader.
“It was his idea,” Crawford said, asserting that Stenger brought “credibility” to the far-fetched project. Few investors would have bought into the project if not for Stenger’s convincing pitches, the judge said.
Stenger was released early by the federal Bureau of Prisons after serving roughly half of that 18-month prison term, which steamed federal prosecutors who had argued for a much longer sentence of five years behind bars.
Stenger said Thursday that he was determined to do “what I can, whether it’s at Jay or Newport, to help the projects that did not come to fruition as I hoped they would.” He added, “I’m doing everything I can at a community level, a local level, to be constructive and be helpful.”
As part of Stenger’s federal sentence, in addition to the prison time he was ordered to pay $250,000 in restitution.
Court records show that Stenger has made monthly payments since August of between $431 and $572 as payment of “criminal debt.”