In October of 2008, we permitted Nicholas B Soriano, his wife Deana Louise Trick Soriano, and his daughter Melody Soriano, to enter onto a resort property that we owned, and to dwell in one of the units. (The property was contained on sixty plus acres with seven major buildings, and one hundred and seven units.) The Sorianos needed a place to stay as they were moving from Texas and we allowed them "two months" in which to locate permanent accommodations. We advised them that by December, they would need to find other accommodations due to our own circumstances regarding the property. We neither offered them a lease, nor charged them any rent. It was strictly a generous accommodation on our part. Nothing More! We had prepared for them a unit in which they could temporarily stay, however, subsequently they notified us that due to mold and other problems within that unit, they were dwelling in a different unit within a different building.
Nicholas B Soriano was a mortgage broker and he subsequently informed us that he would like to purchase the property. We told him that he was welcome to pursue his options if he so chose. However, unless he could provide us with proof of funding, we would continue to pursue our own options. We entered into an arms length purchase agreement. It was not bound by any deposit, and we could terminate it at any time for any reason, including non-performance. This "contract" was even less than any normal offer of purchase. We refused to entertain any of Soriano's convoluted proposals, since they were nothing short of nonsense within an enigma wrapped in a fraud. One such scenario that he continually proposed was that my wife should sign over to his wife fifty-one percent of her corporation. He claimed that this was necessary in order for him to obtain financing. Even his own attorney found this perplexing and we made it crystal clear through our attorneys that this was not going to happen! It was simply outrageous, and would have remained mildly amusing if not for the ensuing events!
Through our attorney, and the Sorianos own attorney, it was made clear that we would not enter into "any agreement whatsoever" with him unless and until such time as he produced a genuine Commitment from a "legitimate lending institution." He produced what was so obviously a forged document purporting to be from a lending institution. We recognized it for the fraud that it was, and told him so. Proof of the pudding was the fact that this forged instrument never amounted to anything. However, we were made aware that he was also making use of even more fraudulent instruments in an attempt to extricate himself from the burglary and the vandalism that he continued to perpetrate upon our property, The Meadows.
Ultimately, it was brought to our attention by a real estate agent, that while in the process of showing our property to a potential purchaser, she noticed that the property had been "vandalized and burglarized" of just about everything. (Including metal fire escapes, metal doors, forty sinks and faucets, copper, commercial ovens and freezers, etc.) We notified the State Police who questioned Soriano in our presence. He denied any knowledge of the damages and losses! His statement to the police, was that he never saw anything and couldn't imagine how it all happened. However, In the course of their investigations, the New York State Police Investigators confronted Soriano with the irrefutable evidence proving beyond all doubt that he was the culprit who had vandalized, burglarized and sold our property for his own personal gain. Although the police made an air tight case against the Sorianos, the District Attorney refused to prosecute the Sorianos saying that it was a civil dispute. He seemed to base this on the forged instruments and statements that the squatters Soriano produced! Our attorneys and even the Sorianos own attorney advised the DA, in writing that any documents Sorianos may have produced in their own defense were fraudulent. The District Attorney took no notice of the overwhelming evidence presented to him, and he permitted the Sorianos to continue their vandalism to, and burglary of our property. And so we were forced to endure all of this, as witnessed by the state police when they subsequently accompanied my wife, onto our own property. The police were restrained by the District Attorney from preventing or stopping a crime in progress! We believe that our protections under the law were totally ignored and grossly violated. We are at a loss to explain this!
The Sorianos were told by their attorney, and ours that they needed to vacate the property! They not only agreed, but stated so in writing. In an email they state that he has been offered a job in Rochester, NY as a VP at a bank, and they will be leaving within two weeks. ("The Winter Of My Discount" is a rambling diatribe that he emailed to my attorney, his own attorney, and to myself.)
Attorney David Carlebach informed us, that potential buyers were interested in seeing the property on May 11th, and that I needed to assess the damages, and the general condition of the property before their arrival. Subsequently, my wife called the electricity company and was told that they had cut off the electricity, at the customer's request, and so we concluded that the squatters Soriano had vacated the "unit" in which they had been dwelling.
