U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge Martin Glenn recently ordered the seizure of assets from 1031 Tax Group owner Ed Okun as the next step in attempting to pay back monies owed to investors aka creditors. According to the Associated Press, this agreement allows the 1031 Tax Group to seize control of it’s owner’s (Okun) assets for liquidation to meet debts outlined in the settlement. Judge Glenn was quoted as saying “This agreement immediately results in the debtor’s recovering assets that can support a liquidation plan and distribution to creditors.”
In the original settlement, creditors rejected the deal because that deal would have allowed Ed Okun to keep ” his four houses, four airplanes, seven boats and 20 cars” The assumption, and nobody from Okun’s camp has chosen to prove otherwise, is that these assets were purchased with creditor’s monies. The old “other people’s money” strategy of investing.
The list of assets seized: a helicopter, Learjet, and two Gulfstream jets. In addition 7 boats will be taken amongst them are a 38ft Cigarette go-fast boat and a 37ft Heim wooden replica vessel. Even more impressive are the cars an incredible collection beginning with two Indy race cars, two Ferraris, two Lamborghinis, a Bentley, and a Rolls.
Although this is a good beginning to recovery, what is puzzling is the fact that the judge is taking all of Okun’s assets away. . . or is he? In the deal, according to Associated Press reports, the judge specified, that “Mr. Okun would be allowed to keep two multimillion dollar homes in New Hampshire and Florida and two cars. Okun will also be able to negotiate a living allowance.”
Granted it is very possible that the two multi-million dollar houses and two cars were assets earned prior to his maneuvers with the 1031 Tax Group. Unfortunately that is not much consolation to people who have lost absolutely every dime they owned in this deal. For those investors, their retirement days will be filled with work trying to rebuild from scratch. Hopefully everyone will be able to walk away with something including Mr. Okun.
