Gina Champion-Cain made a name for herself as one of San Diego’s top businesswoman, but a felony fraud conviction triggered the question — how much of her professional career was built on artifice?
On a cool spring morning in April 2014, Gina Champion-Cain sat inside a Boston courtroom where for more than an hour a federal prosecutor questioned her about an $8 million real estate scam that had victimized developers around the country.This story is for subscribersShe and two other partners, who wanted to transform a downtown San Diego block into a $325 million office, hotel and luxury condo high-rise called Cosmopolitan Square, had lost $360,000 in theWhen Assistant U.S.
She had regularly been featured on local magazine covers and snagged seats on the boards of respected San Diego institutions — from housing and redevelopment agencies to a San Diego business school. She even co-founded a bank. Gina Champion-Cain enters San Diego federal court on March 31, 2021, for her sentencing hearing for orchestrating the largest Ponzi scheme in San Diego history. Champion-Cain was found guilty of conspiracy, securities fraud and obstruction of justice and taken into custody immediately.
“There’s Bud standing in front of one of his buildings he had built, and there’s Gina, who was just coming onto the scene in front of some building she didn’t even own,” he said of the article. “That’s how I described Gina — all dressed up, this polished facade, but like the emperor with no clothes.”
Rather than just concentrate on expanding her restaurants — a daunting enough undertaking for even the most experienced restaurateur — she dove into new enterprises at a pace that puzzled even her top executives. “You were an incredibly successful liar for eight years, weren’t you?” asked attorney Steven Goldfarb.“One of the smartest people in our class”A native of Ann Arbor, Mich., Gina Champion excelled during her high school years, taking higher-level courses and playing field hockey. A yearbook photo of her during her senior year shows her pictured with fellow members of the student council. She was vice president.
An aspiring lawyer, she left her home state for California to get her law degree at California Western School of Law in San Diego. That’s where she met Jane Gilbert, now a defense attorney who roomed with Champion-Cain and two others in a Mission Valley condo while they were attending Cal Western. “Since I’ve known her, she’s always been like that,” Gilbert said. “Obviously, she entered a very male-dominated industry. She is smart, she has a good personality and she’s pretty. And I think it served her well and was part of why she was so successful.”
While Gina and Steve both went to the same high school and college, they didn’t know one another until a mutual friend introduced them in San Diego, said Bruce Smith, a longtime friend of the couple who also was an early investor in the Ponzi scheme with his wife, Kathy. To this day, he says he doubts his friend ever had a clue that his wife was operating a scam.
A former supervisor who did not want to be identified because he still works in the real estate industry said Champion-Cain was part of a team of people who worked with new tenants getting them moved into the shopping center.But years later she had transformed that role into something far larger. “You would think she had done it all,” he said of her depiction of her work on the mall. “She was a property manager. But she was representing she did everything.
“She was really good and really smart at self-promotion,” said Holly Cloud, who worked with Champion-Cain at Koll, and later did interior design work for her properties and four of her homes. “She was the queen of self-promotion.”Champion-Cain’s determination to make herself known in a male-centric industry was strategic from the very beginning.
A year before the San Diego Magazine cover piece, a 2002 issue of San Diego Metropolitan featured Champion-Cain, wearing a lipstick red business suit, towering over the San Diego skyline. The article highlighted her passion for urban redevelopment as she prepared to take over as chair of the influential Downtown San Diego Partnership board.
“This was my first deal and I got conned,” he recalled. “After that, I never wanted to see her again. I realized she was just a fraud.”Over the years, many more flattering pieces would follow, including features in The San Diego Union-Tribune and a tribute to Champion-Cain and Ingrid Croce on the cover of San Diego Woman magazine as the “First ladies of Gaslamp.
The San Diego City Council, though, found plenty to admire and decided to declare June 28, 2006, Gina Champion-Cain Day in a proclamation that devoted paragraph after paragraph to her civic activities and honors. The resolution also cited her service on multiple boards, from the San Diego Brain Tumor Foundation and the YMCA to the San Diego Repertory Theatre.
She said that she had an equity stake in the Acqua Vista project and was a joint venture partner in the massive development with the company. In court papers, Watt officials denied those claims, with then-CEO Jim Maginn saying “neither Champion nor ANI had the experience required for such a significant role in such an undertaking.”
that she did not complete sales on any units, was never an equity partner in the project, and that the deal went bad for them because of bad advice from Champion-Cain. She told them to develop the property as live/work lofts, but the companyWatt also said that Champion-Cain imperiled the project when, in July 2005, she was appointed to the board of Centre City Development Corp. The company was negotiating with the agency at that time over the status of the property.
日本 最新ニュース, 日本 見出し
Similar News:他のニュース ソースから収集した、これに似たニュース記事を読むこともできます。
Signet Jewelers CEO Says Tough Economic Times Are an Opportunity to Capture More Market Share“Tough economic times are another opportunity for us to grow share, thus our acquisition of Blue Nile,” Signet CEO Gina Drosos told CNBC.
続きを読む »
Mountain West basketball schedule unveiled for AztecsSan Diego State won't play Fresno State at home or San Jose State away
続きを読む »
WATCH: Border 32 Fire in Dulzura Forcing Evacuations, Highway ClosuresA brush fire that sparked Wednesday afternoon in Dulzura in far East San Diego County is growing rapidly and forcing evacuations and road closures, Cal Fire San Diego said.
続きを読む »
San Diego Zoo penguin gets fitted boots to treat chronic foot conditionA penguin at the San Diego Zoo suffers from bumblefoot, a degenerative foot condition. FOX13
続きを読む »