Father-son developers charged with extortion

Move comes years after bribery scandal

Bruce and Shawn Chait, a father-son development team at the center of one of Broward County’s biggest corruption scandals, have been charged with harassing and extorting the owner of the property that landed them in trouble more than a decade ago.

The Chaits are in the Broward Main Jail, each charged with six counts of extortion, two counts of racketeering and one count of organized fraud. Prosecutors say they carried out a plan to ruin the current owner unless they were paid more than $3 million.

The owner called authorities, who secretly recorded the Chaits implicating themselves as recently as last week.

Also charged were Harris Neil Shapiro, 38, of Margate, and John James Colonel, 33, of Fort Lauderdale.

The Chaits’ earlier history of bribes led to a corruption scandal that saw a county commissioner imprisoned and political careers from School Board to City Hall maimed or destroyed.

Broward County Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion was convicted in 2009 after confessing to taking $28,200 worth of bribes from the Chaits. Others charged in connection with the Chaits’ corruption included then-Tamarac Mayor Beth Flansbaum-Talabisco, Commissioner Patte

Atkins-Grad and former Broward School Board member Stephanie Kraft.

Bruce Chait and his son accepted a plea deal in exchange for probation and their testimony against the elected officials, but in the cases against Kraft, Atkins-Grad and Talabisco, their testimony appeared to backfire.

None was convicted of the most serious charges they faced. (Kraft was found guilty of official misconduct for skipping out on a vote instead of announcing she had a conflict of interest — the Chaits had hired her husband as a consultant.)

But the scandal and others at the time led to passage of a countywide Code of Ethics and embroiled Broward in corruption controversy for years. One commissioner at the time called the Chaits “two of the most despicable people I think that have walked into this chamber in the years I’ve been here.’’

The pair’s wrongdoing was tied to the planned development of Prestige Homes, which would have replaced two golf courses with 732 single-family homes and townhouses, a proposal that drew opposition from residents of the surrounding neighborhoods.

After the Prestige scandals subsided, the Tamarac property went to another developer, Arnaud Karsenti.

According to a report filed with the clerk of courts, the Chaits plagued Karsenti and his company, 13th Floor Investments, with false allegations about environmental hazards on the property, even paying for the down payment on a home on behalf of a friend and golf partner who sued Karsenti and claimed the property had unsafe levels of arsenic.

The Chaits sent multiple anonymous letters to county officials, including Broward County Environmental employees, making similar fraudulent claims about the property, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Prosecutors say the Chaits were motivated by jealousy over losing their hold on the valuable property. From April 2013 through August 2015, 13th Floor paid the Chaits $500,000 to ward off claims of environmental hazards, according to prosecutors.

Earlier this month, Shawn Chait met with the victim, unaware he was being monitored by law enforcement, according to the report. Chait is accused of asking the victim for $3.4 million in exchange for having allegations of environmental issues dropped.

“These criminals were on a path to destroy the victim’s reputation as well as his business by spreading lies about the land and the victim’s development,” FDLE Commissioner Rick Swearingen said in a written statement.

Bail for each of the Chaits was set at $10.5 million.

SUN SENTINEL FILE Shawn Chait, left, and Bruce Chait have been charged with extortion, racketeering and organized fraud.