by Rick Reilly
Hey Visa, why’d you send my husband a bill for $2,147? You must’ve known that wasn’t going to please him.
In the end, Trump’s people offered him 40 cents on the dollar—$56,000 on a bill of over $141,000—take it or leave it. They said he could sue, sure, but they’d tie him up in court for seven or eight years and he still might not get it. Welcome to Trumpland. Tesoro said he needed time to think. He went home and stewed about it. He wondered how he could keep his business going if he was fighting Donald J. Trump in court for the next seven years.
“I didn’t want to fight. I wanted to be an architect.” A few days later, he sent Trump a bill for a flat $50,000. He still didn’t get paid.
This time Tesoro went straight to Trump himself. Trump greeted him in his Trump Tower office like a returning astronaut. “How’s the best architect in the world?” Trump said with a big handshake and smile. “Have a seat!”
Finally, Tesoro asked him, flat out, “Why don’t you pay me?” Trump explained to Tesoro how the project cost too much and took too long. Tesoro wondered how that was his problem. Trump stood up, offered his handshake, and said he’d give him $25,000, and otherwise, he could go talk to Bernie, his lawyer, down the hall.
In the end, Tesoro took the $25,000—18% of what he was owed.
“I got snookered,” Tesoro says. “I’m pretty savvy, but I got conned and snookered. When I see [Senator] Lindsey Graham and members of Congress kissing his ass over stuff they know isn’t right for the country, I don’t blame them. He makes fools of people. I know how persuasive that man is now.”
It was all rancid water under the bridge until Tesoro was taking Victor to school one day and a mother said, “You should go public with your story.” Tesoro wanted no part of it, but she kept bugging him. Finally, he agreed. Next thing you know, he was on a “Hillary Clinton for President” TV ad—the architect who got stiffed by the Republican nominee for president.
“I got thousands of emails, Facebook comments, phone calls from strangers, everything, mostly supportive and sympathetic,” Tesoro says. “Maybe 10% were like, ‘Oh, you were probably trying to rip him off.’ That’s what some people think. People would call me to say they were still going to vote for Trump. Some called to say they weren’t going to vote for Trump. But I wasn’t paid a dime to do it and, what’s more, I never got an ounce of work out of it.”
The money Trump shorted him not only robbed young Victor of money that would’ve sent him to a school he wanted to go to—Yale or Princeton—but time, too. “He [Victor] didn’t get much attention from me through all of this,” Tesoro says, a little regretfully. “I spent so much time trying to fight Trump that I had a terrible year in business and didn’t get to pay much attention to my son in his last year of high school. But Victor understands. He gets it. At one point, he said, ‘You know, Dad, that Trump guy is kind of like Hitler.’ And I said, ‘No. That’s taking it too far.’ But now, after seeing him as president, I think my son might be closer to the truth than I thought.”
Then there was a young lawyer named Brad Edwards.
In a tiny office, in a gentrifying section of Fort Lauderdale, Edwards was handed a case that made his eyes bug. It involved Trump Jupiter golf club and, to Edwards, it seemed too good to be true.
It all started when Trump bought the debt-plagued Ritz-Carlton Jupiter golf resort and transformed it into Trump National Golf Club Jupiter. It was a killer buy—$5 million for a nice Jack Nicklaus course and clubhouse with 400 members in America’s ritziest golf address.
There was only one tricky part—Trump also got $51 million in an odd kind of debt—deposits the club owed to members, who had each put up whopping initiation fees, some up to $200,000, for an equity membership. (An equity club means the members own it. A nonequity club means the developer owns it.) That means they could get their money back when they quit, as long as there was a buyer to take their place, and there was always going to be a buyer, everybody figured. After all, it’s Jupiter.
Now that $51 million is absolutely untouchable to the new owner of an equity club. You can put it in a CD and get 1% or 2% interest, but you are not ethically allowed to speculate with it, use it for your own purposes, borrow it, spend it, use it for condos, put it into your jet, nothing. Hands off, as written in the contract.
Except in TrumpWorld.
In his first big meeting with his Jupiter members, Trump held a town hall, laid on the charm, and fired up the boaster oven. He said he was going to create the “best club in America” on the “best piece of land” in all of Florida, and pretty soon you’ll be at the most “sought-after” so on and so forth. Oh, and one more little thing, you’re not going to get your initiation fee back. I’m putting all $51 million into the course.
That one sentence made the members sit up straight in their chairs. There were about 150 in that room who were already on the list to sell their memberships. They’d signed a deal saying they could. And now this billionaire was just going to walk away with their $51 million?
It got worse. Trump then wrote everybody a letter: “If you choose to remain on the resignation list—you’re out [of the club].” Not only were you out—meaning you couldn’t play golf at the club, eat at the club, drink at the club, set foot on the grounds, or even look over the hedges—but you’d STILL have to pay your monthly dues until your membership could be replaced. Most private golf clubs add 25 or 30 new members a year, so that meant the last guy on that list might wait five years to get his money back and still have to pay his dues every month—for nothing.
No way that would stand up in court. It was just an empty threat. They had a written contract, and nowhere did it say they were out of the club for getting on the resignation list. Who would be scared by that?
Answer: Most of them.
The thought of having to sue Donald Trump and his small stadium of lawyers scared the pee out of them. Most went along with Trump’s shakedown. They forked over their huge deposits and joined Hurricane Trump.
The remaining 65 lawyered up in the form of a class-action suit brought by Edwards, who not only didn’t flinch at having to go up against Trump, he licked his lips.
“I try a lot of cases,” Edwards said. “A lot of really difficult cases. But it’s rare when you get such a slam-dunk. It just looked—impossible to lose.”
Trump’s coterie of lawyers tried the usual stall tactics, paper threats, and time-wasting motions. None of it worked. These 65 members had enough money they weren’t going to run and hide. It went to a hearing. Edwards flew to New York and deposed pre-president Trump, who said, basically, “Nope. I’m reading the contract differently. I read these deposits as nonrefundable.” This would be like looking at a cow and saying, “Nope. I see a chicken.” How was that possible when it read right in the contract that they got their money back?
“I really don’t know,” Edwards says.
He deposed Eric Trump, the titular president of the Trump Organization, who said no, no, no, he hadn’t revoked their membership, that they were still allowed to use the club. That was not true. They all had emails from the club telling them they couldn’t be on the property. Their gate transponders were turned off. Their head pro told them they couldn’t play the course. The only part of the club they still had access to was their monthly bill. Besides, Eric’s father had already said in deposition that these members were banned. He described them as “angry people.”
Donald reasoned that these members couldn’t be around because, “You’re probably not going to be a very good club member. You’re not going to be so happy.” Apparently, seeing somebody else walking around with $200,000 of your money puts people in a bad mood.
With all those emails and letters as evidence, Trump was deader than Bob Hope on this case, and yet he kept fighting. But why? For a lousy $6 million in dues? When he’d already pocketed $45 million in one meeting? That’s a pretty good deal, right?
Nope. Good was not good enough for Trump.
Edwards didn�
�t just beat him. He beat him twice. A judge ruled in February 2017, and again on appeal in January 2018, that Trump owed the members $4.7 million in dues, plus interest and legal fees, for a total of $5.4 million. That’s not a settlement. Edwards won a verdict. A young lawyer from a tiny firm next to a taco stand in Fort Lauderdale had just won $5.4 million from the standing president of the United States.
“In the long run, though, Trump had already won,” Edwards says, looking back on it all. “He bought this gorgeous club for $5 million. He snapped his fingers and turned $45 million of debt into an asset. It was a great business move. But he just wouldn’t quit. And it just taught everybody that even when there’s a class of people who were right—and they were clearly right—Trump is a fighter who’s gonna fight to the very bitter end, no matter what. You don’t just have to beat him, you have to beat him three or four times. You have to keep beating him even as he’s laying on the ground because he’ll get up and fight some more. The guy will never, ever quit.”
Meet Juan Carlos Enriquez.
The bulk of the painting for Trump’s re-do of the Doral golf resort in Miami was done by his small mom-and-pop business, The Paint Spot, run by Enriquez and his family. It was a monster job, worth well into six figures.
When he was done, Trump still owed him the final payment, about $30,000. It didn’t come and it kept not coming. Enriquez wore out the little door on his mailbox looking for it. Two years went by—no $30,000. You think when Trump talked about the Forgotten Man, he meant Enriquez?
Now, Trump could find $30,000 in the cushions of his 757, but for Enriquez, that was a big chunk of his yearly gross. It was an eight-month job and people had to get paid. “I got three girls, a wife, 10 employees, my brother. I had to get my money,” says Enriquez, the son of Cuban immigrants. “People who don’t pay leave a bad taste in my mouth.”
But Trump wouldn’t cough it up. “I’ve paid enough,” Trump told him.
Dear First National,
Stop sending me notices on my car loan. I’ve paid enough.
Enriquez offered to settle for $26,000. “I don’t settle,” Trump said.
So the painter took a big gulp and sued Donald J. Trump, soon to be president of the United States.
“I mean, if you’re right, you’re right,” Enriquez says. “So I was 95% sure I was going to win. But the lawsuit kept dragging on and on. The legal bills grew to be 10 times the disputed amount. If I lost, I was going to have to close up shop. It would’ve been over $400,000. Where am I gonna get $400,000?”
Finally, in 2017, after three years, Enriquez won. Naturally, Trump’s lawyers appealed. More sleepless months. Finally, Trump lost the appeal, too, and Enriquez pocketed well over $300,000, most of which went to his lawyer.
But get this. In between, Enriquez actually voted for Trump. “Hey, business and politics are two different things,” he says. “I think he’s doing what he said he was going to do.”
Painters weren’t the only people who were stiffed at Doral. There were also the 48 servers who worked a Passover event there and were stiffed between $800 and $3,000 each for overtime. Trump, who “never settles,” settled.
“That’s nothing new,” says former Palm Beach County commissioner Shelley Vana. “We heard of so many vendors who said he didn’t pay them. Everybody was saying it. ‘Watch out. He doesn’t pay his vendors. Be careful.’”
Trump even tried to stiff a guy who made a $1 million hole in one. At a charity tournament at Trump Westchester, a Wall Street tycoon named Marty Greenberg stepped to a tee box that was advertising a $1 million prize to anybody that made an ace there. Greenberg did it. Except Trump’s insurance company said, “Nope. The hole had to be at least 150 yards. It was 139.” They refused to pay. Trump refused to pay. Greenberg sued. Trump settled for $158,000.
This is where it gets worse. Trump still wouldn’t pay it. Instead, he paid it out of the Donald J. Trump Foundation account. What does the Trump Foundation have to do with this, you ask? Absolutely nothing. That was self-dealing and illegal and incurred the Trumps a fat fine, on top of the $158,000, and a few years later, became one of the reasons the Trump Foundation was shut down for good by the New York Attorney General’s Office.
But surely lots of golf course/real estate tycoons must have to stop payment and sue constantly, right? With so many contractors to deal with?
“Never,” says David Southworth, an American golf course developer in the same league with Trump. “Not once.”
Not once? In how many years?
“Twenty-seven,” he says. “We’ve never not paid someone. We’ve never stiffed anyone. We’ve certainly had discussions over time with people, we’ve never just stopped paying them.”
Have you ever heard of any other developer doing it?
“No,” he says. “But I’ve been hearing that about Donald for a long time. There must be some merit to it. I hear it enough.”
Mike Meldman is on Trump’s level. He’s the owner of Discovery Land Company, a fantabulous collection of more than 20 fun, unusual, and hip golf courses where rock music is played at the practice range, the snack shack might be a surfboard with legs, and a tequila shot comes just before your tee shot on 18. Places like Gozzer Ranch in Idaho (Wayne Gretzky is a member), Madison Club in La Quinta, California (John Elway), and El Dorado in Cabo San Lucas (George Clooney and Cindy Crawford). Not only does he always pay up, but sometimes he forgets to stop paying. His golf-architect bonuses are happy legend. Tom Fazio completely stopped working for Trump a long time ago, but he almost never turns down Meldman. Fazio has a set handshake deal with him: $1.5 million to design a course in the U.S., $3 million to design one out of the U.S., and zero interference from the boss. No muss, no fuss, no weekends.
(The first time Meldman met Trump, he was introduced by Fazio. Trump was just starting to get into golf development. The ever-needling Fazio said, “Donald, this is Mike Meldman, the Donald Trump of golf. This is who you think you are and who you wanna be. But you’ll never be him.”)
So, Mike Meldman, in your 30-plus years of building golf resorts, have you ever stopped paying anybody?
“No, not once. Not ever.”
Ever sue or been sued?
“Maybe… twice?”
“Look, Donald is Donald,” says Southworth. “He was always like this. He was like that before and he’s like that now. It’s like there’s a kid with a stick and an ant farm. He’s the kid and we’re the ant farm.”
Finally, there was the tiny, lone-wolf entrepreneur named Andy Batkin.
In 2006, Batkin had the notion of a Million Dollar Golf Challenge. The idea was that 100 PGA Tour hopefuls—guys who hadn’t yet made it—would put up $15,000 of their own cash for a chance to win $1 million.
Catchy hook, but Batkin needed a big name to give it sizzle, so he flew to Trump Tower to pitch The King of Deals. All Trump had to do, Batkin said, was add his glitzy name to it, do a few interviews, watch it all unfold in a one-hour special on ESPN, and he’d get a big flat fee.
“Just think,” Batkin told Trump. “Someday, [NBC golf analyst] Johnny Miller might be saying, ‘This guy got his start on Donald Trump’s Million Dollar Challenge!’”
That excited Trump. “Really? Johnny Miller might say that?”
“Sure!”
Plus, Trump’s people had an idea. If Batkin agreed to hold it at a Trump-branded golf course in the Caribbean, it would kill two birds with one stone. “Mr. Trump had to get down there anyway,” says Ashley Cooper, who ran Trump’s golf businesses at the time. “He owed them one trip down there [as part of a licensing deal] and he’d never seen the course. So it was a win-win on all sides.”
Sold. Trump scrawled his seismometer autograph on the contract, and they were in business.
Fast forward… months later, to Trump’s office, 10 minutes before the giant press conference to announce the big challenge. It was about to take place below in the giant, gilded lobby of Trump Tower.
Every local TV station i
n New York was there, plus over 50 photographers and reporters. Upstairs, Trump and Batkin waited to go down. The plan was that Trump would descend on his magnificent gold lobby escalator, wave, smile, get to the mic, and tell the world about the “incredible, really spectacular, amazing” million-dollar event that was coming to their lucky TV sets and how it would be “like nothing we’ve ever seen in golf.”
Except as he sat in his office, Trump had a bomb sitting in his vest pocket, lit.
He turned to one of his underlings and said, “Tell me again why the fuck I’m doing this?”
Batkin’s heart stopped for a second. What was this? With nine minutes to go?
The underling stammered a bit until Batkin interjected, “Well, because it’s going to be great. And you get your fee, plus you have to go down there anyway.”
“How much are you getting?” Trump barked.
Keep in mind, financially, Batkin was no S.S. Trump. He was a dinghy bobbing in the open sea. He’d taken out a $1.5 million personal loan to guarantee Trump the three-day event would come off. He desperately needed Trump and this press conference to beat the wannabe mini-tour golfers out of the bushes. The golfers would then pony up $15,000 to play for a chance at a cool million. “For a lot of them, they were going to have to borrow it from their uncles or their brothers,” Batkin says. “But I didn’t know if we’d really get guys to do it. I had everything I owned on the line.”
With no Trump, he was a dead man.
Batkin tried to breathe.
If all went well, he told Trump, he was going to gross in the high six figures, but then he was going to have to start paying all kinds of people. A small bead of sweat trickled down his brow.
Trump chewed on that like it was an aspirin tablet.
“Fuck it,” Trump said. “I’m not going down there until I get half.”
Batkin just stared at him.
“I was glad I was wearing a dark suit,” Batkin recalls. “Because I really thought I was about to soil it.”
This is when Cooper, Trump’s golf guy, tried to step in and douse the fire. “No, no, we’re all right. Andy, tell him again your vision for this.”