I am a criminal defense practitioner here in the Chicag area. It is likely that Mr. Kelly will be convicted for some offense. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines take the amount of the theft/fraud into account in determining the appropriate sentence. The sentence will be substantial, if convicted. The ruling in the detention hearing is indicative of the strength of the Government case and the Court's belief in Kelly's risk to flee. The question then is "What will ultimately happen to the Puerto Cancun Project?".
I have read much of what was in the link listed above and find it all really interesting. It's amusing that Kelly claims to have fewer assets than most broke college students, yet his wife's statement says they flew to the US on a chartered plane. I know quite a few people who work at the Cancun airport and they tell me that the Kelly family usually travels in on a private plane. I also thought it was amusing that several of Kelly's character witnesses spoke of Kelly's integrity in lucrative business deals. Yet he only has $48k in assets. I think most people here are certain he would flee the US if let out on bail. The rumor mill here in Cancun says that Kelly rents his Cancun home, so as to not have lots of assets tied up. I have also heard from many places that he has Panamanian citizenship, in addition to being a Mexican citizen and an American. Another "reliable rumor" is that members of Kelly's church here have been praying for his health since his arrest. And he may well need their prayers if things are as bad as his docs say.
When I first heard about Puerto Cancun, I thought it was a very good idea. It seemed there would be a strip like in Puerto Vallarta, Fort Lauderdale as well, with small stores, cafes, entertainement etc....in front of a marina. Cancun already has, but in the HZ, and it is so long that you cannot enjoy but a bit of it. It could make Cancun a friendly city where tourists and locals can meet The beaches are not as nice there because the government pay for cleaning in the ZH (er... I mean, YOUR taxes pay for it like hotel rates), so it would take little more to clean up all Cancun. they already work on the horrible Playa del nino, and we hope (us, residents in the neighborhood) it will be more than decent some day. The beach is already clean and water clear, at least before the weekends and holidays. Quintana Roo has such a powerful department of Ecology that it is a nightmare to have a dangerous tree in front of your house threatening the basement, cut, and do they give you the permit, you have to plant 15 others to replace it. And what do you see on Bonampak? HUGE horrible buildings in the middle of nowhere, damaging the view, the flora and wildlife. That's a shame! "HE"must have given more than his declared $48000 to be allowed to screw up all that area! I hope they stop all that. I feel really sorry for the victims. Not sure they will get their investment back though
RiverGirl, you mention something in one of your posts "Unaffiliated real estate agents". It was my understanding, and please correct me if I am wrong, that anyone in Mexico can call themselves a Real Estate Agent. If this is true, how is one supposed to know who is affiliated or not? 212eric
You are correct that there's little in the way of regulation for real estate agents here. But what I meant was affiliated with a certain development or not. For example my husband is a sales rep for the Residencial La Playa condo project, which is being built on the north side of Puerto Cancun (link below). So he sells that property directly. If another real estate agent wants to sell Residencual La Playa they can, because La Playa permits that. But that agent is not affiliated with La Playa and so the sales process is a little more complex. But in the case of some of the developments in Puerto Cancun an unaffiliated real estate agent cannot sell the property because they won't get a commission!!! This happened to one of my clients who has his own real estate company; he had a buyer lined up for one of the developments in Puerto Cancun and got screwed out of a commission because that development will not work with outside agents. Make sense? Back to the issue of real estate agent regulation. There is no licensing here. But there is an association of realtors in Cancun called AMPI (link below). Several of my R.E. agent friends are members. But you must speak fluent Spanish to get much from it. And lots of the R.E. agents here are Americans and speak poor to no Spanish. So being associated with AMPI doesn't mean much in one sense. AMPI web site: http://www.ampicancun.org/ My hubby's Residencial La Playa site: http://www.mexico-beachfront-real-estate.com
Rivergirl, thank you for taking the time to discuss that explanation in such detail. I will be sure to check out those links. 212eric
what are they selling in Puerto Cancun? What are they selling in Puerto Cancun? Are they selling houses, condos, out right or are they selling investments in a time share or universal lease on the resort development? Kelly's scam was offering a high monthly return to mostly retirees. I'm interested to know if they are running a similar investment scam as part of the development. A few posts back someone wondered why an agent would represent a known scam artist like Kelly. The answer is $. Kelly was paying his brokers 15% commission plus kick backs for pulling people into the Ponzi. The brokers were usually insurance agents, tax preparers, real estate agents, etc. Some of the brokers were victims, others specialized in representing fraudulent investments that offered a high commission. Les Stipek is one of Kelly's agents and he represented over a dozen investments that were all frauds.
There's a residential development area where they were selling lots, plus they were sellign land for condos, shopping, hotels etc. One of the clauses in the residential lot contract was that if they didn't have the lot ready to hand over to you by a certain date, at their option, they would refund your money with x% interest. You didn't have a choice. If they decided to refund, you couldn't stop them. In other words, you put the money up to pay for the contruction of the residential area, and then once NEARLY finished, they could decide to pay back your loan to them, and they could resell the lot at whatever value it had attained at that time. When they refused to modify that clause to give the landowner the option of staying in the contract, I walked away.
One of the complexes that's being sold in Puerto Cancun is Novo Cancun: http://www.mexira.com/property_cancun_novo_cancun.asp It's got high end condos and single family homes. Incidentally these guys do pay outside sales reps a commission.
Be careful about novo I just found this site that talks about issues with this development. http://www.puertocancunowners.com
