Records shed doubt on developer’s testimony
Marta Batmasian denied under oath paying Boca’s mayor, but records show payments were made.
BOCA RATON — A real estate mogul at the center of Boca Raton Mayor Susan Haynie’s public corruption scandal gave a false statement under oath to a government agency, which could subject her to a felony perjury charge, The Palm Beach Post has found.
Marta Batmasian, who with her husband, James, owns more commercial properties in Boca Raton than any other private landowner, gave a sworn statement to ethics investigators in January that conflicts with evidence collected by the State Attorney’s Office in the criminal case against Haynie.
Marta Batmasian has steadfastly denied making payments to Susan Haynie, whose business collected about $140,000 from the Batmasians over four years, the state attorney’s probe revealed.
She made the denial again under oath in January. Asked who had paid Haynie’s business, Marta Batmasian told a county ethics investigator, “It wasn’t us,” referring to herself and her husband.
Yet financial records made
it charged Haynie with public corruption on April 24 state that Marta Batmasian signed $56,653 worth of checks over four years to the real estate management business the mayor ran with her husband, Neil.
In the most recent year, 2017, the state attorney found Marta Batmasian signed checks to the Haynies’ business, Community Reliance, for $16,490. The checks themselves were not made public as part the charges against Haynie.
In addition, the state attorney described checks to Community Reliance for $84,039 in 2016 and 2017 “from the Batmasians and/or Investments Limited,” the Batmasians’ business, the report said without specifying exactly who signed the checks.
The signatures are in contention because Haynie and the Batmasians have maintained that a separate entity controlled by the Batmasians hired and paid Haynie’s firm for work at a Broward County rental community. With that distance between them, Haynie justified her decision to vote 12 times over eight years on Boca Raton projects that benefited the Batmasians.
In a revealing hour-long interview with the state ethics investigator, made available to The Post after a public records request, Marta Batmasian describes how she never really liked Haynie and considered her too ambitious a politician to demand money in return for votes.
Marta Batmasian, 68, declined to answer questions posed by The Post, writing in an email: “I fully cooperated with the ethics commission’s questions and provided full and truthful testimony, to the best of my knowledge.”
‘Sounds like a pretty clear lie’
If Marta Batmasian made a conflicting statement under oath, she could be criminally charged, said Michael Salnick, a West Palm Beach criminal defense attorney not associated with the case.
“That’s not good,” Salnick said after learning the details of Marta Batmasian’s sworn statement. “I don’t know if Ms. Batmasian just thought this would not be used in a criminal case, but she could be looking at a felony.”
Neither Marta nor James Batmasian have been charged with crimes, according to the State Attorney’s Office, which would not comment on any potentially pending cases. James Batmasian did not grant an interview to ethics investigators.
Perjury, or knowingly making a false statement under oath, is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
“If a witness lied in an official government proceeding, I would think it’s incumbent upon law enforcement to go after that person because it’s not just perjury, it’s obstruction of an investigation,” Salnick said.
Investigators concluded the January interview at the Batmasians’ downtown Boca Raton office with the impression she was unaware of any “business or financial transactions” between the Batmasians and Haynies.
It’s hard to believe she would be unaware of checks she would be writing, said Robert Jarvis, a law professor at Nova Southeastern University.
“That sounds like a pretty clear lie,” he said. “Anyone who lies under oath can be charged with perjury.”
But a perjury case can be difficult to prosecute, Jarvis said. A defense attorney can argue that the person didn’t understand the question because they were an “unsophisticated” interviewee, or that the question was open to multiple interpretations.
“There’s always that wiggle room, that, ‘Oh, I didn’t understand the question,’ ” he said.
Marta Batmasian is far from unsophisticated. She holds a master’s degree in business from Barry University and a master’s and doctorate from Brandeis University. She runs the residential arm of the couple’s multimillion-dollar real estate empire.
Prosecutors rarely levy perjury charges alone because it can be difficult to prove the person knew the statement was a lie, Jarvis said. Perjury charges are “usually tack-on charges” used to spur plea negotiations, he said.
“In the end, very few people are going to jail for perjury,” Jarvis said. “It’s a very hard charge to make.”
Filing perjury charges based on statements to ethics investigators is not without precedent. The state attorney’s public corruption unit filed just such a charge against Haynie, accusing her of giving a false statement to the same ethics agency that Marta Batmasian spoke with in January. It was one of seven charges facing Haynie, who Gov. Rick Scott suspended from office on April 27.
County ethics investigator Abigail Irizarry, declining to comment specifically on Haynie’s case or the Batmasians, confirmed that sworn statements willingly given to ethics investigators can be used in criminal cases.
“That’s up to the state attorney, however,” Irizarry said.
‘I’m not a fan of Susan Haynie’
In their January interview, Irizarry and an investigator from the Florida Commission on Ethics pressed Marta Batmasian on her relationship with Haynie.
“This whole thing revolves around the alleged relationship between Susan Haynie’s business or Neil Haynie’s business and you folks,” the state ethics investigator said.
The businesswoman distanced herself from the twoterm mayor.
“I’m not a fan of Susan Haynie. She knows I don’t even like her as a person. But I think she’s been an exceptionally good mayor,” she told the investigators. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Asked if Haynie offered any “quid-pro-quo, where she’ll say ‘I’ll vote for this if you do this type of thing,’” Marta Batmasian replied, “Never. Well, she’s politically ambitious. I don’t think she’ll leave herself open saying that to anyone, not just to us.”
Marta Batmasian emphasized that Haynie was the sole vote against the Batmasians’ pitch in 2001, when Haynie was a freshman council member, to build Royal Palm Place, their largest commercial property.
Haynie, 62, made the same point in her interview, also under oath, with ethics investigators a week later.
“They’ve only ever really built one building,” Haynie said. “I do recall when they came forward on that, which I voted against. I don’t think they’ve ever forgiven me.”
But in 2009 the master association for Tivoli Park — under the control of the Batmasians — hired Haynie’s business, Community Reliance, to oversee work Marta Batmasian described as minimal in her ethics interview.
Irizarry asked her who paid Haynie’s business. She replied: “It was probably, yeah, it was the master association. It wasn’t us, no.”
However, Community Reliance’s checks were signed by Marta Batmasian, the state attorney’s report said.
Earlier in the interview she denied having anything to do with the master association. Asked if she signed the contract that established their business relationship, Marta Batmasian said, “I have nothing to do with the master association . ... I am not part of the master association. Why would I sign?”
The Batmasians didn’t require Haynie’s firm to sign a contract for about $84,000 worth of work in 2016 and 2017. Both sides told investigators the payments were for security camera installation at Batmasian properties.
There was “absolutely NO contract signed with CR (Community Reliance) about security cameras, even though payments were made for camera installation,” Marta Batmasian told ethics investigators in writing.
The state attorney identified the payments but did not specify whether the checks were written by the Batmasians or their company.
Hand injury impedes response
The ethics investigators asked Marta Batmasian to voluntarily turn over contracts with Haynie’s firm, payments made to the firm and checks made out to the firm. She didn’t, instead referring investigators to Neil Haynie for the documents.
Her reasoning? She told investigators in a February email that it was “exceptionally hard” to type because of a hand injury, and that she could no longer speak to them over the phone because of emergency dental surgery.
She provided the “exact figures” paid to Haynie’s firm, but not copies of the checks, writing to the investigator: “All 2017 expenses are boxed and sent to the warehouse. I only have summaries in the computer. I already gave you the exact figures that I had access. I am sure Mr. Haynie can provide the rest.”
The checks came to light after the state attorney subpoenaed Haynie’s bank records.
The allegations against Haynie, first raised by a political opponent and reported in November by The Palm Beach Post, brought months of unwanted attention to the Batmasians’ real estate empire, Marta Batmasian told the investigators.
Hours before Haynie was criminally charged, James and Marta Batmasian and two former employees abruptly ended four years of litigation. The lawsuits, which alleged that the Batmasians engaged in “rampant mortgage, wire, financial, accounting and tax fraud,” were dropped.
Details of any separate agreements between the Batmasians and their former employees have not been made public.
For 35 years since moving to Boca Raton, James and Marta Batmasian have built a portfolio of hundreds, if not thousands, of commercial and residential properties in the city. Their many holdings often appear on Boca Raton City Council agendas. They are major philanthropists and founders of several charities.
James Batmasian, 71, a Harvard-educated attorney, served eight months in federal prison in 2008 for failing to pay the IRS about $250,000 in payroll taxes.
Marta Batmasian often doles out contributions to politicians. She donated $1,000 to Haynie’s 2017 mayoral campaign. She also donated $1,000 to Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg in 2016 and $500 to his 2012 campaign.