Complaint Review: Benjamin Daniels - Internet Internet

Desert Hot Springs, CA An Email of October 19, 2012 was forwarded from City Manager Rick Daniels to his son, Benjamin R. Daniels, requesting he think about a role in this referring to a multimillion dollar scheme soliciting investors for a development involving the city.

The investment offerings and strategies for raising development capital for the Desert Dunes project was first provided to Rick Daniels along with a 16 page fund raising syndicate agreement by investment group VLP.

Within minutes of receiving that email, Rick Daniels forwarded details to his son.

The details are contained in a deleted email of the city manager. The city that is continuously suffering a public relations black eye is socked with another blow with their #1 city employee seemingly engaged in questionable practices of steering business to his thirty five year old son.

Ultimately, its up to government agencies to decide.

Ben DanielsRecent press accounts reveal Benjamin Daniels was cited by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his part in a Ponzi scheme that bilked investors of millions of dollars in a bogus hedge fund. He was fined $286,683 and barred by the SEC from future association with any broker, dealer, investment adviser, municipal adviser, transfer agent, or nationally recognized statistical rating organization.

The transfer of the VLP investment opportunity deal, a project involving a new housing development at Desert Dunes golf course, raises questions.

Rick Daniels email to his son was no accident but hidden as after sending it Rick Daniels secreted the email to the deleted email folder of the city managers city email account. He likely did not know it would be examined at the time he deleted it.

This smoking gun email was discovered as a result of a public document request thanks to the California Public Records Act supporting open government.

The city managers entire email for the month of October 2012 was made public after vetting by citys law firm, Meyers Nave, that first removed privileged matters involving city litigation and personnel before authorizing the public release. After that the city managers email account was made public by City Clerk Jerryl Sorrieno.

The release of his emails so perturbed Daniels that he added a warning to his email automatic out of office reply to discourage people from writing to him with information they did not want to be seen. He instead encouraged people to telephone him on his personal cell phone. Daniels apparently believes his personal cell phone use for city business is not discoverable.

The city managers warning was a curious note picked up by The Desert Sun which published an article about Rick Daniels odd out of office reply. The city manager commented on the article with a complaint about his 6,000 emails being exposed to public review.

The Daniels EndorsementDesert DunesThe 16 page syndicate Syndication Package contains a letter on city letterhead explaining the citys role in the Desert Dunes develpoment.In that letter Daniels says the city will act as lead agency in a developer sponsored annexation that will bring VLPs Desert Dunes development into city limits.

Daniels offered this letter of city support without complete fore knowledge or imprimatur of the city council or public engagement debating the idea. Neither is there in the public record city council approval for creating an Infrastructure Finance District, Community Facilities District or any such financing mechanisms to help fund large investment of the infrastructure of the VLP deal professed by Daniels in his endorsement letter to VLP investors.

Even this Desert Dunes project has never come before the council for their approval or endorsement Daniels provided a letter to the developer stating the city has a desire and willingness to annex the property to support the VLP deal.

There is nothing in the public record indicating the city manager was authorized by the city council to write this letter endorsing the Canadian syndicate and this article is the first to inform the public of this and many other matters contained herein.

To make matters worse than this appearance of conflict of interest with the father secretly funneling business to his son there is another family problem. Benjamin Daniels was cited on December 6, 2012 by the Securities and Exchange Commission for operating as an unlicensed broker selling investments the SEC described as a Ponzi scheme which had bilked investors of $37 million in collaboration with Yusaf Jawed and associates of Grifphon Asset Management and Grifphon Holdings of Portland, Oregon.  

more at http://desertvortex.com/2012/12/16/city-manager-sends-biz-to-son/