Fabulous Faux Fall on The Main Line

Ha !    File under what goes around, comes around, karma she is a bitch indeed.

 Michael Pouls of getting the beloved Baldwin teacher fired a few years ago fame seems to be in a spot of trouble and could land in the pokey.

I touched on Michael and his bride Sheryl in the summer of 2008 when they bought off Baldwin School with a giant pledge and got a teacher fired. Remember the saga of the widowed teacher Patricia Tollin? (I think the teacher was a widow, wasn't she? Not that it matters as she got screwed by the whiny wallet duo, right?)

And then their ostentatious plastic palace in Gladwyne  appeared in an episode of MTV Teen Cribs (You are no one on the Main Line if you don't pimp out your kids yo')

So now flash forward a couple of more years, and no tale of Nouveau Main Line would be complete without a fall from grace.  As in WHUMP! they hit the pavement so hard they didn't splatter, they shatter.

Yes, yes indeed we are talking about bank fraud boys and girls.  As in double whammy yikes it was so large ya wonder about what other designer shoes on the Main Line will be dropping???

Is it  wrong to be almost gleeful that this arrogant SOB is getting his just desserts?  I can't decide.  (and I wonder, did they ever make good on that pledge to Baldwin School?)

I hear Mirabeau Lane in Gladwyne (which is as nouveau a street as can be) is a little odd and Wisteria Lane-like anyway. Well , I guess we understand now why they wanted to unload the family manse, eh? This summer we heard it was back on the market.... And it wasn't so long ago they were also the darlings of society photos in the Jewish Exponent, right?





Of course I do not understand how National Penn and Wilmington Trust didn't seem to truly check this guy out?  Another case of NOT too big to fail?  Greedy freaking banks. 

Main Line developer charged with defrauding banks

By Sam Wood and Bonnie L. Cook

Inquirer Staff Writers

A prominent Main Line developer was charged yesterday by the federal government in a fraud scheme in which he allegedly induced several local banks to lend him more than $13.3 million.
Michael Pouls, 50, devised a scheme in May 2007 to obtain bank loans from National Penn Bank and the former Wilmington Trust Bank, federal prosecutors said. They said he faked statements showing he had $28.5 million in TD Ameritrade accounts to use as collateral for the loans while in reality he had $3,000.
His attorney, Lisa Mathewson, said Thursday that Pouls had already admitted wrongdoing.....Pouls' six-bedroom, 8 1/2-bath mansion was called the "princess palace" by his family and was featured on a 2009 episode of MTV's Teen Cribs.
It was put up for sale this year for $17 million, but the price was later knocked down to $6.9 million. More recently, the real estate blog Curbed Philadelphia says, the house was listed for $3.2 million....The father of two daughters pledged a multimillion-dollar gift in 2007 to the exclusive Baldwin School for girls intended for a new sports facility. The state-of-the-art complex was completed in 2009.

The gift would have gone unnoticed outside the rarefied world of private-school philanthropy, but allegations surfaced of the Pouls family's requiring the dismissal of a teacher before the gift was presented.

The Poulses had complained to Baldwin officials that the teacher had yelled at and humiliated their 7-year-old daughter.
The teacher, Patricia Tollin, then 67, sued the school for not renewing her contract the following year and filed suit against Pouls and his wife, Sheryl, saying the couple had caused her to lose her job.

The Pouls family countersued the teacher, alleging defamation, invasion of privacy, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The entire mess was settled out of court but not before garnering headlines.

In 2009, Pouls' older daughter led MTV through the family's 15,300-square-foot "fairy-tale house." Cameras lingered on an indoor pool with water jets to body-surf, elevators, a private ice cream parlor, and an astronomical observatory.

Between the Baldwin imbroglio and 2011, prosecutors said, Pouls was plotting to defraud the banks.

He allegedly sent bogus statements to the banks showing he had $22,600,000 and $5,900,000 in stocks and money market funds in his trading accounts, but the accounts had only $3,000, documents indicated.

Charges filed Thursday include one count each of wire fraud and bank fraud, and two counts of making false statements to obtain a loan.

If the government proves its case, it will move for forfeiture of Pouls' property equal to $13,350,000, prosecutors said.
The feds may find it difficult to collect. In addition to millions in liens against him from the banks he allegedly defrauded, the IRS is dunning him for at least $7.5 million.

A long way from UBER tack bat mitzvahs, right? See:

Amanda’s Bat Mitzvah Celebration @Roxxy ~ Philadelphia Mitzvah Photographer

Reception ~ Roxxy
Entertainment ~ BMP Entertainment
Caterers ~ Infinity Caterers
Event Planner ~ Z Event Group
It was an absolute delight working with Amanda and her family. What a creative and unique celebration!
Thank you everyone on Amanda’s team who made the party a success.

Philly.curbed

Owner of $22 Million 'Teen Cribs' Home Is Charged By Feds

Friday, October 19, 2012, by Liz Spikol

 

Main Line developer Michael Pouls, who spent $22 million to build his extravagant home in Gladwyne, has been charged by the federal government with fraud. We first featured the Pouls family in June when the house went on the market. It was notable not only for its opulence, but for the fact that Pouls' older daughter, Samantha, had been featured on MTV's Teen Cribs.
Her segment showed that she was living in a wealth bubble in an almost poignantly naive way. On the episode she describes coming home from school to find her messy dressing room neat as a pin, all her clothes folded, she says, "like magic." Yes, Glinda the Good Witch has taken SEPTA to her home and folded her Juicy Couture sweatpants....Whether Michael Pouls got that money legitimately as a real estate developer until 2007 is not at issue; what is at issue is the fraud he allegedly plotted after 2007. "His motive was never to line his own pockets," his lawyer told the Inquirer, "but to save his business during an unprecedented real estate downturn." (That makes sense. Pretty much everyone in real estate did the same thing. For a while, if you went to one of those real estate brown-bag seminars, it was all: "Who's falsifying your documents? I have a fantastic girl who's doing mine, very reliable. Let me give you her number.") Pouls' lawyer also says that Pouls admits wrongdoing and "ceased [the activity] voluntarily long ago." Voluntarily! As of May 2012, the family was still living in the Gladwyne home. Amanda had just been bat mitzvahed and had her party at the Roxxy on Delaware Avenue. Samantha, according to her Twitter bio, "loves to have a good time, gleek, and future movie producer in the making." The house itself, built for $22 million, is now on the market for $3.8 million—quite a bargain, actually. But we wouldn't recommend making an offer—if the government makes these charges stick, Pouls will have to surrender the home. And Sam will have to surrender whatever naivete she has left.
 

 

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