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[Editor’s note: On January 11, 2007 I received a certified letter from Harry Eng and his “For The Record,” in which he describes the circumstances of the events below. They are printed here.]
NOT WORTH THE
PAPER IT’S PRINTED ON
GOT ONYX?
The morning after Mayor Rick Gray exposes Harry Eng as nothing but a con-man, the Intell inexplicably runs the story, “Eng: City maligned my character.” What is wrong with these papers? Are they nuts? Why don’t you have your reporter calling geologists to find out how much onyx it takes to equal $168 million dollars, for crying out loud! Eng’s $200 million project was financed by a freaking unmined, unappraised, onyx mine! Any other paper would be laughing this man out of town and praising the mayor for catching the slimy bastard. And rightly so.
FIND SOME NEWS
Since when does “firing” an 83-year old patronage employee who does nothing and makes $13,000 a year qualify as a story? Since when? Are you nuts? He may be the nicest, most civic-minded man in the world, but he should not be being paid by the city to do nothing. If he needs something to do, let him volunteer now. Hopefully, Gray will “fire” some more of these old men who do next to nothing. Go check out the courthouse, Mayor Gray…oops!...I guess you’ve been there! And so Gray chose to hire who he wanted to be his own secretary. This is news? Did you expect anything different? Are you nuts? Find some real news.
YOU’RE BEING ROBBED
Like what’s happened to the F&M area burglar who struck 58 times? Where’s the follow-up? Is he laying low? Has he struck again? What are the police doing to catch him? How hard can this be? Several people reportedly saw him. Hang a sketch of him on every tree in Lancaster. Where’s the follow-up? People want to know.
PUT IT ON THE FRONT PAGE
Why is the article about a man trying to lure a girl into his car buried? Put it on the front page. This is every parent’s nightmare and rightly so. Put it on the front page so people are alerted. I don’t care how many freaking deer were killed in the last 10 years. I care that there’s a sick-o out there trying to pick up little girls. Put it on the front page.
DON’T PUT IT ANYWHERE
Finally, someone really, really needs to tell Hawkes to cut it the hell out. He can barely write - let alone write humor. How did today’s column make it to print? Seriously. That “column” would not make a high school newspaper. Numskull. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
GO BLOW, ENG
“I was a socialite who ‘knew all the right people’ in Real Estate Development, Fashion, Entertainment, Musicians, Celebrity Stars, Producers, Record Companies, Hot Night Club Owners such as Steve Rubell Studio 54, Danny Fried, China Club and many respected Artists. I entertained big names on my luxurious dinner yachts constantly and always made sure my friends and associates had a great time dining and dancing to the Manhattan skyline.”
From “Harry Eng Speaks” on 5thestate.com (click here).
“INCIDENT”
All of this was before what Eng refers to as “the incident of October 2, 1986.”
“Eng was arrested twice in 1986, first in May, when he was charged with selling heroin to an undercover officer, the second time in October ‘after allegedly delivering 69 pounds of cocaine to agents,’ New York Newsday reported in its Dec. 9, 1986 edition.”
From “Heavy debt paid,” Sunday News, 3-5-06 (click here).
DELUSIONAL
Why are you in Lancaster, Harry? Because you tried this in New York and Philadelphia and they didn’t buy your story?
“These days, almost any architect with an AutoCAD computer program can whip up a glossy collage of buildings and call it a plan. That seems to be what Harry Eng and his Atlantis New York Group have done. The pretty pictures glow - just like the eyes of a madman. This proposal borders on the delusional. Eng says his $3 billion vision was intended for Manhattan's Hudson River waterfront, but he grafted it onto Philadelphia's waterfront when New York rejected him.”
Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic Inga Saffron, 9-14-03 (click here).
NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
So you were going to try it in Lancaster next, huh, Harry? What was your plan? Just do phase one of the “project?” Put in a few nice condos? Invite some of your charming friends and buddies to come to Lancaster and explore the new business opportunities?
You’re a changed man who did his time but failed to mention the little “incident” until you were found out? Then you threatened to take your business elsewhere and then you complained you were being over-scrutinized? Then you have the gall to say the city engaged in “character assassination?” Mayor Gray said, “The information received by the city is so lacking in verifiable details that a bank would never accept it for financing a home sale, much less a major project.”
You wasted everyone’s time and got people’s hopes up, Harry.
GOOD RIDDANCE
Get out, Harry. Go home. Thank goodness your scam was uncovered. Go shovel some onyx so you have some actual and non-drug money to offer in the next city you try to scam. Go blow, Eng.
~ Bye Con Man Harry! ~
CRAZY FOR ONYX!
The beautiful, hand-carved natural onyx chess set shown above is only $50 (click here). The Tiffany Company apparently only stocks three onyx items at the current time with the most expensive (click here) being a pair of cuff links valued at $1,500, although the 18k gold settings and backs would seem to be a large part of that price because they also have a much smaller sterling silver pair at $255.
Harry Eng really did turn out to be “Dirty Harry.” You have to wonder what his ultimate scam and goal was going to be in this whole scenario. Do you really think he ever planned to actually build two 21-story towers in Lancaster?
The principal “financier” of the project, Kevin Gleaton, was suspended by the North Carolina Commissioner of Banks according to today’s Intell article, “Financial questions topple towers” (click here).
And where was Mr. Gleaton going to get the money for the project? From an onyx mine in Arizona that hasn’t been mined yet. That’s right. A geologist, Sam Arbuthot, appraised the value of the mine at $168,437,500! There’s a really big problem with that, though. Arbuthot doesn’t have a license as a geologist because California rejected him.
This has to be one of the great scams anyone has tried to pull on Lancaster in years. Put “Dirty Harry” on the next train out of Lancaster.
On a serious note, this project involved private money and the convention center is using public money. Artie See published this under an earlier thread, “Eng & Gray,” (click here) about Gray and the convention center project:
“During the election campaign, Rick Gray promised to investigate the project by appointing a special committee to study it. The night of his inauguration he told me personally he didn't have their report yet. Less than 24 hours later he was blasting opponents of the project, while claiming the committee had determined the project was a good idea. Yet the report of this committee has never been made public. We have no way of knowing what their conclusions were, how they reached those conclusions, or even who was on the committee.”
Mayor Gray, you did the right thing with Eng. Please take the same kind of detailed look at the financing and feasibility of the publicly funded convention center project.
By the way, Artie has a guest column on his blog on the Eng situation by “citydweller” (click here). Sorry, citydweller, you are completely off the mark on this one.
“Pssst. I own an onyx mine in Arizona too!”
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