Company with connections to Trump honors his businesses

NEW YORK — More than a dozen Donald Trump golf courses, hotels, casinos and private clubs have been honored with “Star Diamond” awards from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, a company that doles out shiny plaques representing “the most prestigious award of true excellence in hospitality.”

The Trump Grill at Trump Tower has one. So does the Trump Buffet & Grill in the basement. Indeed the entire New York City skyscraper sports one of the plaques, for being “the ultimate residential building worldwide.”

But when it comes to Trump, the academy isn’t an independent observer.

The organization is run by Joseph Cinque, a longtime Trump acquaintance who goes by the nickname “Joey No Socks” and has a felony conviction for possessing stolen property.

As recently as last May, Trump himself was listed on the group’s website as its “ambassador extraordinaire,” and he appeared in a 2009 tribute video to Cinque in which he said: “There’s nobody like him. He’s a special guy.”

But Trump told The Associated Press on Friday that he doesn’t know Cinque well and was unaware of Cinque’s criminal conviction.

“If a guy’s going to give you an award, you take it,” Trump said. “You don’t tend to look up his whole life story.”

An AP review shows that about half the roughly 30 American Academy of Hospitality Sciences trustees listed in the company’s own press materials appear to be Trump friends and business associates.

At one point, Trump’s two adult sons; the chief operating officer of the Trump Organization, Matthew Calamari; and Trump’s longtime butler, Anthony Senecal, all served as trustees simultaneously.

Also listed are businessman Howard Lorber, who has called Trump his “hero,” and actor Tony Lo Bianco, who said he believes he was introduced to Cinque years ago by Trump.

Trump said the board members connected to the Trump Organization are likely just the recipient of honorifics.

“I don’t know that anybody goes,” he said. “I’ve never gone to a board meeting.”

While the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences has given awards to hotels and restaurants around the globe, including famed Manhattan restaurants Le Cirque and Jean-Georges, the company has also honored Mexican food, Poland’s tourism board and Sepp Blatter, the former president of soccer’s scandal-plagued governing body, for “making the world’s greatest sport even better.”

Still, the ties between Cinque and Trump appear to be close. Cinque served as a judge with Donald Trump Jr. in the 2008 Miss Universe pageant. The academy honored Donald Trump with a lifetime achievement award in 2013.