When KPMG lies about condo sales, it gets a pass; when Trump SoHo (allegedly) lies, they get sued

Funny, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) calls a lie by consultant KPMG about Brooklyn condo sales an "alleged inaccuracy" that is "trivial" as a legal matter.

It's just one of several lies in a report KPMG prepared to give the ESDC cover in its dubious judgment that the Atlantic Yards project could be built in a decade.

And so far, KPMG gets a pass.

Trump gets sued

Not everyone sits idly by when bogus sales figures get promoted. By contrast, in an article yesterday headlined Fifteen Buyers File Lawsuit Against Trump SoHo Project, the Times reported:

A group of 15 buyers at the Trump SoHo Hotel Condominium New York is suing groups and individuals behind the project, contending that they inflated sales figures in the first year and a half of marketing the project.

According to the complaint, which was filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan on Monday, representatives of Trump SoHo said the project was “30, 40, 50, 60 percent or more sold” — both in individual sales pitches and statements to the press — but after the offering plan became effective in May, buyers learned that just over 15 percent of the building, 62 of the 391 units, had been sold.

“They had a concerted and consistent pattern of lying about the numbers of units sold,” said William J. Geller, a lawyer at Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., who is representing the buyers. As a result, Mr. Geller said, his clients bought units they otherwise would not have. “They never would have signed contracts if they knew only 10 percent of the units were sold, instead of the 50 or 60 percent they were told,” he said.

(Emphasis added)

Drawing the parallel

By the same logic, the ESDC would never have approved the project timetable last year if it knew the Brooklyn condo market was so much weaker than claimed by KPMG.