Jared Solomon tried to reduce his impending prison sentence — which could be up to 16 years — for the $9.5 million scam he ran at Vornado Realty Trust. But the judge overseeing the case denied his request to subpoena the REIT’s records.
Solomon, a former vice president of leasing at Vornado, was convicted in April on four counts of fraud and identity theft for a years-long scheme he ran at the company. Solomon created fake brokerages and billed Vornado for millions of dollars in services that his sham companies never performed.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a term of 159 to 192 months, and are based in part on the amount of money Solomon stole. (The guidelines are a recommendation, and the actual sentence may be different.)
Anthony Cecutti, Solomon’s court-appointed attorney, argued that the actual loss may be less than the $9.5 million figure.
Cecutti applied to subpoena Vornado’s general ledger account, policies around amortization and write-offs and copies of the insurance claim it filed related to the theft. He said he wanted to find out if Vornado baked the brokerage commissions into the leases.
“If that is the case and Vornado recovered the brokerage commissions from the tenant and amortized over the course of the lease, the figure may not be a true economic loss to Vornado,” he wrote in court filings earlier this month. “Given that loss is the principal driver of a 159 to 192 month range, an alternative loss amount could move the Guidelines range substantially.”
Vornado opposed the application for a subpoena, saying it would be an unfair burden that would take weeks of employees’ time to uncover the records.
On Tuesday Judge Loretta Preska quashed the subpoena, explaining that — regardless of Vornado’s accounting practices — the amount at issue is the $9.5 million Solomon stole.
“The trial evidence established the amount of the loss,” she wrote. “Loss is the amount the victim was fraudulently induced to pay.”
Insurance payout
Solomon also made a request to subpoena Vornado’s insurer, The Great American Insurance Company, for information on the $9.7 million claim the REIT filed related to the fraud.
Solomon said Great American has so far paid Vornado $2.9 million, and that the insurance company’s analysis might represent a more accurate, third-party calculation of the loss.
The insurance payout is also relevant, he argued, when it comes to determining the order Vornado and Great American would be paid in restitution from the sale of two homes — a $4.5 million house in Westchester and a $3.6 million co-op apartment on the Upper East Side — Solomon bought with the stolen money.
“Applying that order correctly requires knowing how much of Vornado’s $9,732,799.55 claim has already been paid by Great American and how much remains Vornado’s own,” Cecutti wrote.
Great American, which filed a civil lawsuit against Solomon in December, opposed the application for the subpoena, which Judge Preska also quashed.
Cecutti also argued that Vornado never paid Solomon 4,400 company shares due to him as part of a separation agreement that could be worth at least $600,000 — money that should be applied to reduce the loss amount.
Solomon is currently being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and had to be appointed a new attorney in May after running out of money to pay his trial lawyer.
His sentencing was originally scheduled for August, but has been postponed three times. It is now scheduled for Nov. 5.
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