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In 1998, Pat Smith WestPac was appointed CEO of Westpac, a California-based real estate development and management company with offices also in Australia and activities in California, Hawaii, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Michigan.
Westpac is in charge of projects totaling more than 5,000 apartments, seven hotels, and five senior living communities, as well as a variety of condos, office buildings, and single-family subdivisions. These projects are made up of those it has independently developed as well as those it has acquired through partnerships with banks and private investors.
With Pat Smith WestPac in charge of projects totaling more than $7 billion, the Pat Smith WestPac era symbolizes nearly 25 years of success. Pat Smith WestPac has been working hard to make WestPac more environmentally sensitive, which has caused the business to prioritize constructing LEED-certified projects.
In addition to WestPac Communities, WestPac Development, WestPac Hospitality, and WestPac Investments, the company has four other affiliates. WestPac Campus Communities has been the business that has been most active in new construction in recent years.
We look at 34 different data points when analyzing and rating online money-earning opportunities. Once the research on these data points is submitted, expert contributors reach out to the company’s customers and associates to get more insight into their operation. Finally, all the collected information is presented in the form of this expert review.
All the data is extracted from publicly available information and the sources are given in the transparency section at the bottom of every report.
These reports are made possible by the collective efforts of contributors like you. If you would like to become a contributor then contact us here.
Pat Smith WestPac: Receives a one-day jail
According to public documents, a district judge ordered Pat Smith WestPac, who was originally the developer of Base Village in Snowmass, to spend 24 hours in the Pitkin County Jail for repeatedly disobeying a court order.
According to a court transcript, Pat Smith WestPac has until midnight on June 1 to report to jail. The sentencing is a result of a legal dispute with Preston and Betty Henn, Smith’s neighbors, over their property rights.
The previous president of Related WestPac, the former joint partnership that created Base Village, is developer Pat Smith WestPac from California, who also owns a residence near the foot of Aspen Mountain. Smith left Related WestPac in February 2009 after losing control of the project during the crisis.
Boyd’s decision, however, focused on Smith disobeying a court order prohibiting him from enhancing a walkway on the Henns’ property three times. 660 S. Galena St. houses Smith’s residence, which goes by the name of WestPac Aspen Investments. Next door at 550 S. Galena St. is the Henns’ residence.
According to property records, Pat Smith WestPac paid $4.225 million for his house in May 2002. In July 2004, the Henns paid $4 million for their home.
A covered footbridge, a route through the Henns’ front yard, and an elevator ride up the Residences at Little Nell are all necessary steps to get to the Pat Smith WestPac residence. The Henns’ property’s edge is where the footbridge comes to an end; Smith’s property is another 25 feet distant.
After nearly seven years of litigation over the access, the Henns and Smith, who had both accused the other of trespassing, finally had a jury trial in March 2015.
The jury awarded the Henns $50,000 in punitive damages and $100,000 in real damages as compensation for Smith erecting walkways on their property.
Pat Smith WestPac was also banned from enhancing the aforementioned pathway by a 2010 court order, yet, according to court papers, he did so in 2011, 2013, and 2014. The 9th Judicial District Judge James Boyd issued an order on March 15 to handle those contempt-of-court breaches, which were not part of the jury trial from the previous year.
Boyd’s ruling, which held Smith in contempt of court three times, noted that Smith “chose to engage in self-help three times in manners that violated the terms of the injunction.”
When the flagstone and ground were later removed, Smith left the path with a “sloppy and muddy surface,” according to Boyd. Smith had permitted grouting to be installed in the spaces between the flagstones. Smith gave the go-ahead for the path to be covered in a substantial layer of gravel in 2014.
Pat Smith WestPac expressed regret for his acts, according to the transcript of a sentencing hearing from April 5.
In his testimony to the judge, he said, “Trying to get to my front door has caused me a lot of anxiety and stress in my life. “This has been going on for seven years, and I think I acted carelessly… a few times over this seven years as different situations arose over the access way of this walkway to my front door,” the author said.
Boyd gave Pat Smith WestPac a 48-hour jail sentence at first but indicated at the hearing on April 5 that it might be reduced if he paid a $20,000 fine for being in contempt.
At the hearing on April 5, Boyd said, “It’s not just concerning this contempt but just unfortunate that, Mr. Smith, you and the Henns have had all of this conflict over something important in one way, but it’s become an awfully big deal for what it is, as well.
Matt Ferguson, a lawyer in Aspen, who represented the Henns, and Joe Krabacher, Smith’s attorney, could not be reached for comment.
Pat Smith WestPac: Being sued over an oil cleanup agreement
Investors in Ocean Therapy Solutions (OTS), a company connected to actor Kevin Costner that sold oil-spill clean-up equipment to BP during the Gulf disaster, have filed a lawsuit against Pat Smith WestPac, the former president of the discredited Related WestPac development entity in Snowmass Village.
Spyridon Contogouris of Louisiana and actor Alec Baldwin of New York, two OTS investors, filed a lawsuit last week against Smith, his company WestPac Resources, LLC, Costner, and a bank by the name of Rabobank N.A. in the U.S. District Court in New Orleans.
According to the lawsuit, Smith deceived Contogouris and Baldwin about a planned equipment sale to BP, opened an unlawful bank account in the name of OTS, and then used funds obtained from BP to fraudulently purchase the two men’s shares in OTS.
Contogouris and Baldwin contend they were defrauded of $12.5 million as a result of Smith and Costner’s acts.
Through OTS, which has a Santa Barbara address, Smith and Costner could not be reached for comment, and no response to the initial case has yet been submitted.
Californian real estate entrepreneur Smith worked on the Residences at Little Nell project in Aspen and then recruited many investors to buy most of the commercial real estate in Snowmass Village. One of those investors was The Related Companies of New York, which acquired the Base Village project from Intrawest and the Aspen Skiing Co. owners in 2006 through Smith.
According to Related’s local representative Steve Alldredge, Base Village is only partially completed and is currently the subject of foreclosure proceedings, Related WestPac is no longer a working development company, and Smith is not operationally involved with Related’s remaining real estate assets in Snowmass Village.
In the spring of 2009, Smith resigned from his managerial role at Related WestPac. A little more than a year later, while serving as OTS’s chief operating officer, he sat behind Kevin Costner as the COO testified before Congress regarding the efficiency of the oil-and-water separation machinery OTS was selling.
The oil-and-water separation technology was initially financed and developed by Costner, who owns a residence in Aspen, in the 1990s under the name of a business named CINC, Inc. Costner lost money when he sold the business and the technology’s rights since the oil drilling industry was not interested in the equipment.
But on April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig blew up and a significant volume of oil started flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, Contogouris claims he spoke with Costner about starting a new company to sell the oil-and-water separation machinery.
The lawsuit claims that Contogouris founded OTS and that on May 13 an operating agreement was formed, giving Contogouris a 28 percent ownership stake in the business, actor Alec Baldwin a 10 percent stake, and Smith’s WestPac Resources a 20 percent stake.
According to the lawsuit, “By this time, Costner had introduced Smith to the members of OTS, whom Costner identified as his business manager and business partner in WestPac.”
According to a statement on the OTS website, “Smith has always remained passionate about environmental issues discussed in any forum, and has personally been able to successfully implement this green approach to the construction, management, and planning of his most recent development of Snowmass Village, Snowmass Colorado.”
The lawsuit states that BP consented to test the OTS separation apparatus on May 13 “for potential use in cleaning up the Deepwater Horizon spill.”
According to the lawsuit, the OTS investors at that time had “differences in business philosophy.” However, Smith “favoured a ‘quick kill’ approach involving a one-time sale of the equipment to BP at a higher price.” Contogouris and other partners “proposed that the units be rented to BP at a fair price in a long-term arrangement.”
Additionally, according to Contogouris, he “had been uncomfortable with Smith’s involvement in OTS” and both he and Baldwin had shown an interest in selling their shares of the business. According to reports, Smith suggested purchasing Contogouris’ and Baldwin’s shares for $1.4 million and $500,000, respectively.
According to the lawsuit, a BP executive agreed to purchase 32 of the oil separation units from OTS on June 8 at a meeting with Smith and Costner. The following day, with Smith grinning behind him, Costner testified before Congress about the separation apparatus and stated that BP planned to purchase some of the units.
Additionally, the CEO of OTS, New Orleans attorney John Houghtaling, allegedly informed WWL radio that day that BP had agreed to purchase 32 of the units.
“Contrary to these public statements, Smith told Contogouris that BP had in fact not placed an order and that these statements were being made by Costner and Houghtaling to pressure BP into making an order,” according to the lawsuit. “Contogouris relayed this information to Baldwin and expressed that Costner, Smith, and Houghtaling’s approach was dishonest and inappropriate when dealing with a significant client like BP,” according to the report.
Despite Costner’s public statements about BP’s interest in the separation units, the lawsuit claims that on June 11 Contogouris and Baldwin formally agreed to sell their shares in OTS for $1.4 million and $500,000, respectively. According to the lawsuit, BP submitted a purchase order for 32 of the separation units on June 12 for more than $52 million.
The lawsuit asserts that if plaintiffs had known that BP had placed a $52 million order with OTS, they “clearly would not have sold their investment in OTS for the amounts paid.
The lawsuit continues by alleging that on June 14 “Costner, Smith and WestPac clandestinely, secretly and wrongfully caused an unauthorized bank account in the name of OTS to be opened at Rabobank, N.A. in California,” adding that the account “was used by Costner and Smith as their piggy bank.”
In addition, the lawsuit alleges that Rabobank committed negligence by enabling Smith to open such a bank account.
According to reports, OTS profited $38 million from the agreement with BP. Contogouris asserts that Baldwin, who held 10% of OTS, would have made $3.8 million and that his proper portion of the deal’s proceeds would have been $10.64 million.
Get Justice Suspicious
Conclusion
A joint partnership that attempted to construct the Base Village in Snowmass is being sued in two separate New York court cases for more than $200 million.
Under a payment guarantee of loans for the project, Hypo Real Estate Capital Corp. is requesting $195 million from Related Companies and Pat Smith WestPac, the former president of Related WestPac.
In addition, Hypo is asking for $10.6 million in compensation for alleged wrongdoing surrounding the use of a project for staff housing as collateral.
Base Village allegedly owes $48.5 million in loan-related charges in addition to $386 million in loan debt, according to a complaint filed in Pitkin County District Court by four lenders. The 400,000-square-foot property recently entered receivership and is now the subject of a foreclosure attempt by the lenders.
What about the naive investors who had put their hard-earned money into this project? literally due to these cases, most of the people had to suffer heavy losses. At the end of the day, the investors have to suffer the most.
This guy had the allegation of breaking the rules and didn’t follow the regulations which are made by the court. It clearly seems that this man always disobeys the rules. It is better to stay away from them.
The individuals who deceive their own clients and partner in the shake of the money what would you expect from them? That they return the money of the investors. These types of cases need to be solved first as these will safeguard the money of the people.
People like Pat Smith don’t think about their investors they are here to earn a profit and for this, they are doing various scandals to escape from the crime. This is insane man how can they even think about these types of illicit activities?
The government made a mistake when it granted permission to create the project but didn’t check whether the corporation was capable of doing it. These are the bogus strategies devised by these con artists in order to deceive the public.
Reading this article made it clear how these people were playing with the emotions of the investors and stealing the money of the investors and have done nothing for the people.
I agree with the author these types of financial crimes need to be stopped.