The business partners of former Baltimore Ravens player Michael McCrary have been ordered to pay him $33.6 million for secretly keeping millions of dollars in insurance proceeds from a New Orleans condominium project.
Judge Paul Alpert in Baltimore City Circuit Court made the award, which includes more than $15.8 million in compensatory damages, the same amount in punitive damages and $1.9 million in prejudgment interest.
McCrary said the judgment “feels refreshing.'”
“I’ve been dealing with this for about a year and a half and to have the court see through all the fog and the smoke that was put up … was gratifying,” he said. “It makes a strong statement to my ex-partners that they can’t get away from this and hopefully will prevent them from defrauding anybody in the future.”
During the trial, McCrary’s lawyer Kenneth B. Frank described the proposed deal, a conversion of a 45-story office building into condominiums called Crescent City Estates. McCrary invested a total of $3.5 million in exchange for a half-interest in the property. Instead, when the property was sold, he recouped his investment and more than $2 million.
Frank described how Edward Giannasca and his associate, Stuart C. “Neil” Fisher, hid $12 million in insurance proceeds paid to Crescent City Estates LLC after Hurricane Katrina ruined the development plan.
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