Well, this is a new one for me. After I posted Sue Legg’s piece about Erik Fresen, Sue contacted me and told me she had mistakenly sent me her notes, not the finished post.
So, here is the finished post. I must admit. It reads better. And there is a picture of Erik Fresen.
It begins like this:
Remember Representative Fresen, whose sister Magdalena Fresen is Vice President of Academica, Florida’s largest for-profit charter management company? He term limited out of the legislature this year. His next step is to go to jail?
Ethics Florida Style: Go Directly to Jail
The buzz about Florida is that there is more self-interest than public interest than in any other state. Are such allegations warranted? Information is not difficult to find. The Center for Public Integrity ranked states on a corruption index in 2012. Florida was rated an ‘F’ on ethics enforcement agencies. It appears there are rules that are easy to bend and break.
Take the case of former Florida House Representative Erik Fresen who served in the House for eight years. It looks like he will serve in a Florida prison next year. He was Chair of the House Education sub-committee on Appropriations, and a former property consultant for Civica, a real estate company with ties to Academica. Fresen’s sister and brother-in-law operate Academica, the largest for-profit charter management firm in Florida. Their charter school real estate holdings generate over $20 million per year.
Fresen pled guilty this week for failure to file federal income taxes for eight years. During the same period, his House financial record disclosures do not match the IRS income reports. This is simply a culmination of years of questions about Fresen’s ethical behavior.
I just noticed that the words “For-Profit,” “Florida,” and “Fraud” are consecutive in my list of categories. Kind of like “Testing” and “Texas.”
OOO-lala!!! Thanks, Diane.
Love your last sentence.
Diane, can you please include your research (direct links, summaries) that explains the money making real estate scam that is “for profit” charter schools? It can give this post a more informed perspective. Thanks.
Bill,
There have been many reports on the strategies by which charter operators leverage real-estate deals to make huge profits. I wrote about some of them in “Reign of Error.” Mercedes Schneider has written about them.
Carol Burris sent me some links for you.
She wrote:
“My next charter report will be a deep dive into real estate dealings.
“There are several ways people use real estate for profit.
“There are the companies like Agassi’s that deal in charter real estate
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-05-14/agassi-charter-school-partner-aims-for-1-billion-with-new-firm
“This article tells more here
http://www.philly.com/philly/business/20160418_Agassi_s_fund_cashes_in_on_N__Phila__charter-school_venture.html
“He is involved all over the country.
Here is an article I wrote about a charter school and real estate developer Abe Atiyeh in Pa.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/01/09/a-disturbing-look-at-how-charter-schools-are-hurting-a-traditional-school-district/?utm_term=.8789b53b3252. He buys property, helps get a charter going behind the scenes, and then leases his buildings at very high rent. If the charter fails, he gets another one in to pay the rent. This is common–buy the property and then lease it at ridiculous prices.
“The other real estate piece is the leveraging of property. The charter chains do this. They buy a building, and then refinance it for well over what they paid for it, and use that money for profit or to expand. In states like Arizona where you get to keep the property if the charter fails, it is a very attractive deal for those who put up the money-they get high interest or the building that the taxpayers have been paying for.
“And if you are a charter holder and you own the real estate in Arizona, you get to keep it. Even though the taxpayers paid the mortgage, it belongs to you. That is why a lot of charters in the state are in suburban areas.”
Bill, did you click the link in Diane’s post to see if that information is in the original post on this latest for-profit, corporate charter school, choice fraud?