Nightmare on the Isle of Sans Souci: Part I — The Lawsuit

Last week we asked Who Benefited from New Rochelle PBA Contract at Center of Ethics Investigation?

We considered what we see as the key question for investigators working on our complaint that New Rochelle Human Resources Commissioner Christine Dodge failed to report a potential conflict of interest based on an alleged romantic involvement with New Rochelle PBA President Christopher’s Greco: whether the police union’s 6-year contract valued at over $100 million and approved by the New Rochelle City Council on September 17, 2019, contains changes to the previous contract made for the benefit of a particular individual.

Our analysis of the two contracts showed Greco benefited significantly from the agreement, with months of time off each year. Greco is not required to be at work — or even in New Rochelle — for a quarter of each year. In the current agreement, Greco is now paid for time consulting with accountants and financial professionals.

As a legal matter, the question will hinge on what Dodge got in return, her “quo” to Greco’s “quid”. As a political matter, the question will depend on whether Dodge retains the confidence of City Manager Charles B. Strome that she will act in the best interest of taxpayers. At the end of the day, she serves at the pleasure of the City Manager.

We noted Greco, as PBA President, routinely weaves information about his non-profit organization into posts on the PBA Facebook page, which in turn promotes his for-profit restaurant in Larchmont, Christopher’s by Chef Joe run by Greco’s neighbor and business partner Joe Giordano.

We also noted the seemingly inexplicable relationship between Greco (and his cronies) and Westchester magazine. His restaurant gets generous coverage; his non-profit was named the “Best Local Charity” in the magazine’s 2020 Best of Westchester edition. Anna & Jack’s Treehouse, owned by Greco pals Rob and Christina Rubicco, was named “Best Childcare” in its 2020 Best of Westchester edition.

Westchester magazine may as well have called this month’s annual edition The Best of Greco: his non-profit was (again) named “Best Local Charity,” his friends’ childcare center was (again) named “Best Childcare”, the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce was named “Best Chamber of Commerce”. Elizabeth Seton Children’s Center, where Greco has previously publicized his son resides, was selected as the “Charity Beneficiary” of Westchester magazine’s Best of Westchester gala for 2021 — and 2022.

The self-referential flattery does not end there.

Christina Rubicco was named to the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce Board in 2018. Later that same year, she was honored with a “Women of Excellence” Award. In 2020, the New Rochelle Chamber of Commerce gave Greco an award for “Distinguished Community Service” for his work on his non-profit organization which Greco, predictably, promoted on the PBA Facebook page. The New Rochelle Boys & Girls Club named the Rubicco’s the 2020 “Family of the Year”.

And so, the wheel spins its’ blurred lines.

As we have watched all of this unfold, we considered a 2017 lawsuit involving Greco, Rubicco and others, involving the homeowners association where they both live, as do many others in the tangled web Greco has woven.

All of it came together when we learned about Greco’s role in what became the Ethics Complaint we filed involving Dodge and Greco. The time has come to tear down the facade of rectitude Greco and his pals have constructed to conceal what we see as a pattern of self-dealing involving non-profits connected to Christopher Greco.

For many of his neighbors, “St. Christopher” is a terror to be feared, not a saint-like figure to be honored.

According to the statements of neighbors and a 2017 lawsuit, Christopher Greco has used fear and intimidation to have his way in his neighborhood.

Although Greco resigned in 2016 from the two boards which control funds and other assets in the Sans Souci neighborhood of New Rochelle, he was perceived by many in the neighborhood to be pulling the strings, so it was no surprise when he returned to one of the boards three years later.

Those neighbors say for years, complaints involving Greco to police and New Rochelle City officials fell on deaf ears. If you are a friend of Greco, they say, you can violate traffic laws, park where you want, ignore the New Rochelle City Code and the rules of the neighborhood Homeowners Association. If you do not go along to get along with Greco and his neighborhood cronies, you may get a visit from Greco, wearing his sidearm on his hip and sporting a New Rochelle Police Association t-shirt or even have New Rochelle Police Officers dispatched to your home on specious, “anonymous” criminal complaints.

Over the past decade, they say, Greco took control of the Sans Souci HOA Board and the Sans Souci Pool and Tennis Club Board (see 2013 ballot, above).

Today, the two boards combined have 11 members between them.

Sans Souci HOA Board

• President Michael Di Cosimo
• Vice President Christopher Greco
• Treasurer Philip Colasuonno
• Secretary Louis Vanaria
• Recording Secretary Mark Valente
• Corresponding Secretary Michael Balascio
• Financial Secretary Danny DeMarco
  

Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club Board

• President Jennifer Di Cosimo
• Vice President Robert Viola
• Treasurer Philip Colasuonno
• Secretary Pat Schepis
  

A simmering dispute over homeowner’s association dues, guest fees and fireworks escalated into recriminations, resignations, and allegations of criminal activity in New Rochelle and a lawsuit. The fight among neighbors on the Isle of Sans Souci moved into New York State Supreme Court in 2017 and was settled in 2019 with neither side admitting guilt but the plaintiffs getting everything they wanted out of the Stipulation of Settlement signed on April 19, 2019.

The documents filed in support of the lawsuit paint a picture of Greco gaining control of two non-profit organizations, the Sans Souci HOA and the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club, then using that control to personally benefit himself and a select group of friends and neighbors.

The most serious allegation is what appears to be possible bank fraud.

To understand the nature of the dispute and what appears to be filing a false loan application with a federally chartered bank required a trip in the Wayback Machine, where memories and records can be a bit blurry.

As we understand it from a review of voluminous records, the story goes back to the 18th century. The eastern end of what is today known as Davenport Neck was purchased by the Davenport Family in 1784.

Newberry Davenport built a mansion on the property in 1853 and named it “Sans Souci” from which the neighborhood takes its name. The house still stands today at 157 Davenport Road.

Isle of Sans Souci was a real estate development project begun in the 1950s. It was built on Newberry’s front yard where it sloped down to the waters edge along Long Island Sound.

The Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association was formed soon after.

Streets in the neighborhood include Kensington Oval, Rodman Oval, Hampton Oval, Winchester Oval, Windsor Oval, Lynn’s Way, and Davenport Road.

Sans Souci (pronounced sahn soo-see) translated from the French means, “without worry”.

There is still plenty to worry about on the Isle of Sans Souci, residents say. Even with the 2019 Stipulation Agreement, violations continue and Christopher Greco, who resigned from both boards in 2016, is back on the board of the Sans Souci HOA.

On February 24, 2017, Marie Rizzo. Matthew Pirinea, Francis Decaro and Thalia Lott filed suit against the Isle of Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association, the Board of Directors of the Isle of Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association, and Christopher Greco, Michael Di Cosimo, Robert Rubicco, Robert Viola, and Bruce Goodman, all individually and as Directors of the Isle of San Souci Homeowner’s Association.

Director’s insurance for the Sans Souci HOA and Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club paid for the legal defense. Lott later dropped out of the complaint.

Greco, Rubicco, Viola, Di Cosimo, and Goodman, the Treasurer, ultimately resigned from both the Sans Souci HOA board and the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club board. Greco is alleged to have backdated his resignation from the boards in a failed attempt to separate himself from the lawsuit.

Michael Di Cosimo is today President of the Sans Souci HOA board, with Greco as Vice President. Jennifer Di Cosimo, Michael’s wife, is President of the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club board. She also sits in the board of Greco’s charity.

Goodman sold his house and moved to another City after the lawsuit was filed. Phil Colasuonno is currently the Treasurer of both the Sans Souci HOA board and the Sans Souci Pool and Tennis Club board — the only person currently sitting on both boards.

For reasons that remain unclear, resigning officers felt empowered to appoint their successors rather than hold elections.

The dispute began over a question whether homeowner’s association dues, established in the Sans Souci HOA by-laws in the 1950s at $100 annually, could be increased and, if so, how and by how much.

Driving that question was the desire of Greco, et al. to lower the cost to operate a separate pool and tennis club, established in the 1970s, on property leased at no cost from the Sans Souci HOA and bound by Sans Souci HOA rules. That lease long ago expired, sources say, and a new lease agreement was never put in place.

Since its inception, the Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association has owned and operated a beach club, where all homeowners are members and all required by a covenant to pay a $100 fee.

Twenty years later, a group of Sans Souci HOA members comprising about two-thirds of the Isle of Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association established the Sans Souci Pool and Tennis Club as a separate legal entity, which, as its name suggests, owns and operates a swimming pool and two tennis courts, on property “leased” from the Sans Souci HOA.

Members of the Sans Souci HOA are not required to be members of the Sans Souci Pool and Tennis Club or pay dues or otherwise support it. Both are set up as not-for-profit corporations.

The San Souci Pool & Tennis Club has no real property assets of its own — it “leases” the land on which it sits from the San Souci HOA.

Sans Souci HOA rules and the New Rochelle City Code include a prohibition on Sans Souci HOA member’s bringing guests to the beach or the Sans Souci Pool and Tennis Club, which is for the exclusive use of the residents. There is to be no selling guest access, no entertainment, live or mechanical, no outdoor PA system, no excessive public external lighting, no engaging in commercial activity and no consumption of alcohol on Sans Souci HOA property.

Special permits obtained in 1973 and 1974 by the Sans Souci HOA for the purposes of building what is now the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club — a pool, tennis courts and recreational building — were not closed out. On July 10, 1990, the New Rochelle Board of Appeals on Zoning adopted a motion to legalize the existing structures under the same conditions as the original permits: the playgrounds, swimming pool, tennis courts and recreational buildings are for the exclusive use of the residents provided that no entertainment, live or mechanical, or an outdoor PA system or excessive public external lighting is permitted.

The lawsuit alleges that in 2013, a new group of directors led by Greco who became Vice President then later President took control of the Sans Souci HOA and the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club then, by 2015, had effectively “merged” the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club and the Isle of Sans Souci Homeowner’s Association, paying expenses for both entities through the one combined bank account, making internal transfers of funds on the books of the two entities and filing a single tax return under a single tax identification number for both associations.

The most significant allegation in the lawsuit is that a $50,000 5-Year Note (bank loan) was taken out from HSBC Bank by the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club secured by the assets of the Isle of Sans Souci Homeowners Association.

Under the loan terms, HSBC has a lien on all deposits and other assets, including property of the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club.

The nature of this loan agreement is central to the complaint filed by Rizzo, et al. — that the Sans Souci HOA and Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club are two separate legal entities, that it is the Sans Souci HOA that owns all the property used by both entities not the other way around and that the funds filling the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club bank accounts at HSBC were obtained in violation of Sans Souci HOA rules and the New Rochelle City Code —and may have included Sans Souci HOA funds in HSBC bank accounts encumbered by the loan agreement.

The terms of the note are exceedingly generous to the bank. In 2014, commercial interest rates were between 4% and 5%. Greco, et al. agreed to pay interest at 9.15%, about double prevailing interest rates — and with what effectively amounts to no reasonable prepayment option for the borrower but a right for the bank to call in the note at their sole discretion.

Lying on loan documents submitted to a federally chartered bank is a serious federal crime.

Robert Viola played a key role in putting together the $50,000 HSBC loan, sources say. For reasons not made clear, although elected to the twin boards as “Robert Viola” he signed the loan agreement under a different name, “Louis Viola”.

Robert/Bob/Louis Viola “paid” himself out of HOA Funds.

He wrote checks to “Robert Viola” but signed the checks “Louis Viola”.

Robert/Bob/Louis Viola would later play a key role in financing Greco’s restaurant, Christopher’s by Chef Joe, these same sources say. Christopher is Chris Greco’s son. Chef Joe is Joe Giordano, yet another San Souci HOA member.

The motivation for the efforts of Greco, et al., as described in the lawsuit, was for the directors, in particular Christopher Greco, Rob Rubicco and a select group of other Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club members, to turn the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club into something it was never meant to be or permitted to be, a quasi-commercial enterprise open to non-residents. The effect, plaintiffs claimed, was to disrupt the peace and quiet of the neighborhood while subsidizing the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club at the expense of the one-third of Sans Souci HOA members not members of the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club, many of them elderly and unlikely to use a swimming pool or play tennis. Greco, et al., sought to generate revenue for the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club in ways prohibited by the Sans Souci HOA by-laws, and the City of New Rochelle, and enrich themselves through undocumented “reimbursements” from the combined entities bank accounts which were swelled through prohibited commercial activities and a highly questionable bank loan.

The lawsuit alleges, among other things, that in violation of the Sans Souci HOA by-laws and New Rochelle City Code, Christopher Greco, Rob Rubicco, Robert/Bob/Louis Viola, Michael Di Cosimo, and Bruce Goodman collected daily guest fees to access Sans Souci HOA property, advertised and sold tickets to events on Sans Souci HOA property, held public/commercial events on Sans Souci HOA property, allowed and encouraged the consumption of alcohol at these events, and set off fireworks displays without a permit. In furtherance of their efforts to generate a profit on Sans Souci HOA Property, complainants alleged, some board members engaged in harassment and strong-arm tactics intended to pressure HOA members, many of them elderly, to go along with the new policies and practices and not join or otherwise support the lawsuit filed against them.

Exhibits in the lawsuit purport to show that Goodman, acting as Treasurer of the illegally combined entity, wrote thousands of dollars in checks to Rubicco, Greco and Viola ostensibly as reimbursement for expenses but without supporting documentation of those claimed expenses.

Greco was reimbursed for “fireworks” which he is alleged to have purchased illegally and which were set off as part of an illegal fireworks display on Sans Souci HOA property. Sans Souci residents say over the years each time they called to complain about fireworks being set off on Sans Souci HOA property, New Rochelle Police officers would drive by, see and hear fireworks but report the complaint as “unfounded” in deference to Greco, who in 2013 became President of the New Rochelle PBA.

Tracy Greco mocked the concerns of Sans Souci residents about illegal fireworks displays as recently as a year ago, on her Facebook profile.

In short, the defendants are alleged to have turned Sans Souci HOA property into their personal playground, in violation of Sans Souci HOA by-laws, New Rochelle City Code and New York State law, encumbered Sans Souci HOA assets with an illegal loan and turned the assets of the improperly combined non-profit organizations into their personal piggybank.

In a response to the Court, the Defendants denied all of the allegations in the lawsuit.

At his request, while the lawsuit was pending, we provided Rob Rubicco with a detailed list of information gleaned from the lawsuit cited in this article. Unbeknownst to us, Rubicco had recently resigned from the Sans Souci HOA and the Sans Souci Pool & Tennis Club. Despite requesting the information, Rubicco declined to address the information.

“I am not on the HOA or P&T board, I cannot speak to any current board business and, due to the lawsuit you mentioned, I cannot answer any questions that pertain to it and refer you to the HOA attorney.”

Rubicco provided contact information for Rich Sklarin of Miranda Sambursky Slone Sklarin Verveniotis LLP. Sklarin did not respond to our repeated requests for comment.

UPDATE 7/28/2021: On December 18, 2018, Judge William J. Giacomo granted a motion as a result of which he found the San Souci HOA did have the authority to raise the $100 HOA fee but denied all other cross motions.

On April 16, 2019 a Stipulation of Settlement of Discontinuance with Prejudice was signed by lawyers for both parties. “With Prejudice” means the parties can not sue again on the same claims.

The Stipulation of Settlement to the lawsuit reads like an acknowledgment that the complaint was well-founded. It requires the HOA to comply with “New Rochelle City ordinances and/or laws and/or approvals and/or resolutions (including ZBA Case No. 63-1990) referable to the provision of commercial entertainment, permissible lighting, and noise levels”; file separate tax returns for the Sans Souci HOA and the San Souci Pool & Tennis Club; maintain the integrity of all financial records (i.e., pay reimbursement by check, make payment based only on invoices, maintain records of supporting documents, make records available for inspection, pledge not to encumber any asset of the HOA); hold board meetings in compliance with the HOA by-laws; not sponsor fireworks displays without obtaining a permit; maintain appropriate insurance coverage; require a board vote on expenditures over $500 not approved in the HOA annual budget; obtain competitive prices for bids and proposals; restrict fires to fire pits.

Although the agreement says “ZBA Case No. 63-1990”, the board making the decision was the Board of Appeals on Zoning or “BAZ” so is correctly referred to as “BAZ Case No. 63-1990”.

New Rochelle BAZ Case No. 63-1990 effectively states the Sans Souci HOA and the San Souci Pool & Tennis Club is for the exclusive use of Sans Souci residents which means no guests and no guest fees. There are two letters confirming this from the City of New Rochelle. There were meetings with City Officials and Greco and Rubicco advising them to appear before the Planning Board and/or Board of Zoning Appeals to seek changes that would allow guests and guest fees. There are no records that such appearances ever took place.

Soon after the Stipulation of Settlement was signed in April 2019, the Sans Souci HOA announced a new Sans Souci Guest Policy for the 2019 Summer Season.

In accordance with HOA By-Laws, The Executive Committee shall be empowered to make all rules and regulations with reference to the guest of a member and guest privileges. This Policy is subject to change at any time at the discretion of the Executive Committee. All by-laws of the associations remain valid and enforceable. HOA/Pool & Tennis Guest Policy Effective May 2019 Memorial Day to Labor Day.

As the City of New Rochelle has made clear on multiple occasions since 1990, BAZ Case No. 63-1990 prohibits guests on Sans Souci HOA Property and therefore the Sans Souci HOA has no authority to make any rules and regulations with reference to a guest of a member and guest privileges.

An unsigned June 2021 letter seen by Talk of the Sound, sent to the Sans Souci HOA executive board and circulated among Sans Souci residents claims the Sans Souci HOA board is not abiding by the 2019 Stipulation of Settlement. In their response, the Sans Souci HOA Board dismissed the claims.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Christopher Greco has publicly and pointedly refused to answer our questions, but if he changes his mind, we will publish any response he cares to provide.

Nightmare on the Isle of Sans Souci Series