PORT ST. LUCIE — Hundreds of Tesoro property owners aren’t waiting around while their subdivision’s developer grinds through bankruptcy court: They’re filing their own lawsuits against Ginn Resorts and its affiliates.

Property owners are charging Ginn with a host of wrongdoings, including selling lots through Ponzi schemes, fraudulently inflating property values, lying to and duping clients, failing to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in membership dues and missing escrow accounts and backing out on promises to build amenities.

Timothy Vetrano, 72, a retiree from Manhasset, N.Y., who lives at Tesoro with his wife Marilyn, said his experience falls under “buyer beware.”

“I should have done a little more due diligence,” said Vetrano, who joined three other couples in a suit that’s part of the bankruptcy action. “But it was good sales and pressures ­— not pressures — but good sales, and you went along with it instead of saying, ‘Wait.’”

The 1,400-acre community off Becker Road features luxury homes with lake and golf course views. In 2007, home sites ranged from $400,000 to more than $700,000 and home-only prices ranged from $1.2 million to more than $5 million.

The company’s money problems surfaced last summer, when Rob Gidel, Ginn’s president, announced the company did not make principal and interest payments on a $675 million loan from Credit Suisse and had reached an agreement with several of the company’s lenders to temporarily postpone loan payments.

By the end of 2008, Ginn had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection for Tesoro and another of its projects, Quail West in Naples.

On March 31, West Coast Investors, owned by Glenn Staub, who also owns the Palm Beach Polo Golf & Country Club in Wellington, bought the Tesoro property, including 353 unsold lots, 11 acres of commercial property, a racquet club and the 115,000-square-foot, $45 million clubhouse. WCI paid $10.99 million.

After four years of living in Tesoro, Vetrano said he and his wife love living there.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “My wife and I love everything except what’s happened to us. That’s the sad part of it.”

Ryan Julison, a spokesman at Ginn’s headquarters at Celebration near Orlando, said the company “will vigorously defend ourselves against these and any other false allegations.”

Here’s a rundown of some of the civil actions taken by Tesoro property owners:

• John and Flora Migyanka, Christopher Delaney

The three Tesoro property owners claim Ginn told buyers they “could immediately ‘flip’ their lots and profit substantially by doing so,” according to the lawsuit.

Instead, the three say, Ginn sales people actively sold the company’s property “to the exclusion of resales.”

The three charge Ginn officials with violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and several counts of fraudulent misrepresentation and breach of contract.

• Stanley H. and Luanne Zabytko, Rayne G. and Connie Poussard, Timothy and Marilyn Vetrano, Joseph and Deborah Coury.

The four couples, all Tesoro homeowners, filed without an attorney to be part of the Ginn bankruptcy case.

They claim they paid a total of $212,500 in deposits for golf membership options at Tesoro, but the company didn’t fulfill its obligation to build amenities such as a beach club and a third 18-hole golf course.

Plus, they say the deposit money isn’t in an escrow account as Ginn officials said it would be.

• 133 Tesoro property owners

The homeowners are seeking “declaratory relief” within Ginn’s bankruptcy case, claiming Tesoro’s new ownership is obligated to operate the club according to existing membership plans and to provide amenities not yet constructed by Ginn.

The filing claims WCI has “made known its plans to … run polo ponies on the driving ranges on Sundays, convert the (golf-oriented) club to an equestrian club and ‘moth ball’ the Club.”

• Naomi Berger, Barry Sobel, Charles H. Whitehall

The property owners allege that Ginn officials used “insider sales to affiliates and friends” to artificially inflate prices for lots at Tesoro. The plaintiffs claim they suffered “lost profits and diminished property value” as a result.

• 19 Michigan residents

The 19 are among 124 Michigan residents who sued Ginn and its subsidiaries in federal court in Michigan in May 2007. The case has since been moved to federal court in Jacksonville.

A nine-count lawsuit charges Ginn officials with violations of the Interstate Land Sales Act and the Securities Exchange Act, making false representations and operating a Ponzi scheme.

The plaintiffs allege that Ginn sales agents promised would-be buyers their property would be resold “immediately … at a substantial profit.”

Instead, the suit claims, agents used the inflated prices of the plaintiffs’ property to show prospective buyers how much cheaper they could purchase Ginn-owned property.

• Bergman Family Limited Partnership

Charging breach of fiduciary duty, the family contends Ginn “preferentially sold, marketed, promoted and showed real property owned by Ginn St. Lucie over plaintiff’s property, specifically to the exclusion of selling, marketing, promoting or even showing plaintiff’s property.”

By Melissa E. Holsman, Tyler Treadway

Tags: bankruptcy, beach, breach, celebrities, club, communication, contract, court, development, driving, fall, federal, Florida, Ginn, golf, inflatable, Jacksonville, lake, lawsuit, lender, loan, missing, money, Naples, orlando, polo, prices, property, roads, robbed, sale, sales, scheme, security, tesoro, value, violations, violators, wife

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:01 am and is filed under Courts, Economy, Port St. Lucie, Treasure Coast business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.