Emails obtained by VTDigger show internal squabbling within Vermont’s executive branch over the release of state EB-5 reports filed with the federal government.
The records would shed light on what the state was telling federal authorities during an eight-year period in which the developers of Jay Peak resort carried out a monumental fraud in the Northeast Kingdom.
The Vermont EB-5 Regional Center filed annual reports with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (the so-called I-924), and forms for individual projects (the I-924A), from 2008 through 2016. During that time, former Jay Peak owner Ariel Quiros and the ski area’s CEO Bill Stenger misused $200 million in foreign investment money through the state-run EB-5 program.
More than 800 investors were affected by the fraud. Most have not recouped the $500,000 they each invested in the Jay Peak projects; more than half have not received green cards as promised through the program.