Board of Trustees Member Involved In Shady Real Estate Deals

By Ryan McNamara

The New York Times recently published a report on the shady dealings of New York real estate’s elite, and a Board of Trustees member is involved.

The piece, published on February 7th, details the inflow of foreign wealth investing in New York’s most luxurious apartments. The laws pertaining to the purchase of these apartments allow for substantial secrecy on behalf of the purchaser. The Times found that many of the buyers take advantage of the law to allow for their money to be spent inconspicuously, even when they earned it through suspect means (many have histories of corruption and criminal behavior.)

Wang Wenliang, a billionaire Chinese businessman and contractor, as well as a Board of Trustees member, is featured in the article. He is alleged to have purchased three Time Warner Center condos with a shell company, Columbus Skyline L.L.C. The report found records that the shell company paid $25.6 million for the condos. Two-thirds of Time Warner Center residences are owned by shell companies.

Utilizing the secretive laws, the state filing for Columbus Skyline does not list the name of the company’s owner. The New York Times discovered it was Wang Wenliang’s company when they found that the address listed for the company belonged to Mr. Wang.

But that’s not all they uncovered. “Another round of searches found a less glamorous side to real estate used by Mr. Wang’s company in the United States,” the article reads. In a blunder quickly becoming a theme at NYU, Trustee Wang has been found to have committed labor violations by housing his workers in unsafe conditions.

“We conducted the inspection and uncovered conditions that were very troubling to say the least,” the chairman of the hosing task force in Jersey City told the paper, “There were 15 Asian males with no identification, passports, or work visas all residing in this one-family attached rowhouse.” He continued, “The crammed quarters were extremely unsanitary and posed an imminent hazard.”

Mr. Wang’s business, China Rilin Construction Corp., was made to pay several thousand dollars for the violations.

Mr. Wang’s lawyer responded to the claims, saying that the company “took the allegations very seriously, and the reported violations were all quickly remedied by the company or dismissed.” Wang purchased the condos through a shell company in part because an ex-employee has threatened him.

[Images via The New York Times]