Attorneys for Elevate QOF deny fraud claims in Hilton Homewood Suites project dispute<\/a><\/p>\nCorpus Christi Police, along with the FBI, Texas Rangers, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office and the Nueces County District Attorney\u2019s Office, found no evidence to support claims of fraud or forgery connected to the project, officials said.<\/p>\n
Councilman Roland Barrera said the findings validate what city leaders have maintained throughout the controversy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think basically it just validates what we\u2019ve been saying all along — that there was no fraud and there was no crime committed,\u201d Barrera said. \u201cHopefully it puts a lot of things to rest.\u201d<\/p>\n
The allegations stem from a lawsuit filed by Ajit David, a member of a competing hotel-management group, accusing developer Elevate QOF, LLC and local architect Philip Ramirez of misrepresenting floodplain information during a presentation to the city\u2019s Type B Board as part of an incentive request.<\/p>\n
Attorney Jeff Lehrman, who represents Ramirez, said investigators thoroughly reviewed the claims before closing the case.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of the relevant law enforcement agencies followed the facts, not the sensationalism,\u201d Lehrman said. \u201cThey all came to the same conclusion — that there was no crime committed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehrman said the Corpus Christi Police Department has formally closed its investigation and that other agencies, including the FBI and Texas Rangers, have also declined to pursue charges.<\/p>\n
While the criminal investigations are now complete, both Barrera and Lehrman emphasized that the civil lawsuit remains active.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe civil case is still continuing,\u201d Barrera said. \u201cBut hopefully this puts to rest the idea that there was fraud or criminal wrongdoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elevate has denied the allegations, previously calling them baseless and politically motivated, and has filed its own legal action seeking to uphold the city ordinance approving the project. The Hilton Homewood Suites development remains in progress as the civil litigation moves forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘Hopefully this puts to rest the idea that there was fraud or criminal wrongdoing.’ Councilman Barrera told 3NEWS…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-92058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}