Pugliese denied award

Developer and manager to pay $2.9M in damages

As recently as last year, Delray Beach-based developer Anthony Pugliese III said he was entitled to at least $20 billion in damages from the estate of Subway restaurants co-founder Frederick DeLuca.

Then Pugliese’s attorneys on Thursday urged a Palm Beach County jury to “just do the right thing,” without specifying a dollar figure.

“Render a verdict you’ll be proud of,” pleaded Willie Gary, lead attorney for Pugliese.

After a five-week civil trial, the jury on Friday agreed Pugliese is owed nothing as a result of DeLuca breaching a contract more than eight years ago to build a massive green city in Central Florida.

But on a counter lawsuit by DeLuca’s estate, the jurors determined Pugliese and his business manager Joseph Reamer should pay out $2.9 million in damages tied to fraud and civil theft violations. DeLuca’s attorneys say the award will be tripled.

While the jury declined to award any punitive damages to DeLuca, the damages award will enable DeLuca’s estate, including his widow, Elisabeth, to collect several million dollars more in interest and lawyers’ fees, said attorney Rick Hutchison.

“The DeLuca family is pleased with the verdict and very grateful for the jury’s service,” he said.

Pugliese’s lawyers vowed

to appeal the result, which came after 7 1⁄2 hours of deliberations.

“It wasn’t what we expected, but we had a very diligent jury and we appreciate their hard work,” said Tricia Hoffler, another attorney for Pugliese, 70.

After the verdict, Pugliese hugged his wife and walked out of the courtroom with a wide grin.

“I’m ready for the next fight,” he told reporters.

The six jurors — four men and two women — declined requests for comment before leaving the courthouse.

Pugliese’s appeal is expected to focus in part on more than a dozen claims that the court prohibited from the trial.

The parties have been battling since 2009, with the dispute over the failed project called Destiny even winding up in criminal court with DeLuca and Reamer convicted on felony fraud charges.

In 2015, Pugliese and Reamer pleaded no contest in the case, resulting in a six-month jail sentence and 10 years of probation for Pugliese, and a fouryear probation term for Reamer, 58. Pugliese, who wound up serving four months in jail, also paid $1.2 million to the estate of DeLuca, who died of leukemia that year.

That amount will be subtracted from Friday’s jury award of damages for the DeLuca side.

Prosecutors brought the charges based on DeLuca’s allegations that Pugliese and Reamer created fake companies and used phony billings to steal from DeLuca.

The money went to expenses at Pugliese’s oceanfront mansion in the Town of Gulf Stream, including an $11,000 “moat chilling machine” to cool a pond to keep fish alive, records show.

Pugliese and Reamer testified they diverted the money into a reserve account because DeLuca had been wavering on his investment in the project on 41,000 undeveloped acres in Osceola and Indian River counties.

Hutchison urged jurors to reject any award for the men he branded as criminals.

“This was an organized scheme to defraud,” Hutchison said, while asking for the estate to collect $46.3 million for the alleged fraud, plus more for punitive damages.

“You pick a number that’s appropriate given the situation,” he said, accusing Pugliese and Reamer of lying under oath and stealing from his client.

Attorney Gary said the developer had “paid the price” for his mistakes and still deserved to be compensated for the way DeLuca breached the partnership and “caused a billion-dollar project to go down the drain.”

“They are trying to snow you,” Gary said of the arguments by DeLuca’s legal team.

Attorney Hoffler argued the jurors should look beyond his “bad judgment” and find fault with DeLuca for reneging on the venture touted as bigger than Washington, D.C., or Walt Disney World.

“This Destiny project was a gold mine,” she told the jury. “We’re asking you to hold Fred DeLuca accountable for all of his financial manipulations, delays designed to destroy this project.”

Pugliese testified that he put together a “dream team” of architects and engineers to create Destiny, pitched in 2008 as “America’s First Eco-Sustainable City.”

But Hutchison argued Pugliese was in way over his head for a project of that magnitude, and wound up with 27,000 acres of mostly wetlands near Yeehaw Junction because of incompetence.

“It wasn’t a dream,” Hutchison said. “It was a fantasy.”

Before Thursday’s closing arguments, Pugliese’s attorneys argued for a mistrial because of instructions to the jury called “misleading” over the issue of the $1.2 million Pugliese already paid to DeLuca in the criminal case.

“If I’m the jury I don’t know what’s going on with these jury instructions,” Hoffler said.

Circuit Judge Donald Hafele denied to grant a mistrial, ruling both sides had worked out an understanding of how to instruct the panel.

After the verdict, Hafele praised the jurors for their “incredible demonstration of perseverance.”

“I’m ready for the next fight.” Anthony Pugliese III, Delray Beach-based developer

FILE PHOTOS Subway co-founder Fred DeLuca, left, and Anthony Pugliese III.