Sandusky resort owner charged with fraud

CLEVELAND — A Missouri man is charged with fraud and money laundering in connection with his purchase of the Maui Sands Resort hotel and indoor waterpark near Sandusky.

Inderjit Singh Grewal of Branson repeatedly lied and used fake documents when he bought the 300-room hotel and 55,000-square-foot indoor waterpark in 2018, according to federal prosecutors.

Mr. Grewal and an associate, Lee Friedman, were charged late Monday in federal court in Toledo with conspiring to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering. Their arraignments are set for April 25 before U.S. District Magistrate Judge Darrell Clay.

Mr. Grewal lied repeatedly to get a $7 million loan to buy and rehab the park off State Rt. 2 and U.S. 250, near Cedar Point and other attractions. He never intended to rehab the building and instead planned to use the loan for personal expenses, according to federal prosecutors.

The resort opened in 2008 as the area’s fourth indoor waterpark, closed abruptly the same year, and reopened in 2013. The resort closed again at the start of 2019, just months after Mr. Grewal bought it. It has been vacant since.

Prosecutors said in court filings that Mr. Grewal also either tried to pull off or executed similar schemes at an unnamed resort in nearby Huron, Ohio, and a hotel in Spokane, court records show.

In the Maui Sands deal, Mr. Grewal used fake documents at nearly every key point in the purchase, aided by Mr. Friedman, according to court records.

He approached the resort owners in 2017 after he saw the hotel featured on the TV show Hotels Impossible. The owners had a deal in the works, but after boasting of having “a ton of money,” Mr. Grewal persuaded them to sell to him, according to court filings.

The purchase price for the 300-room hotel and indoor water park was $5.9 million. But after a massive water leak further damaged the building, the price fell to $4.8 million, court records show.

An unnamed Michigan real estate developer agreed to provide a $7 million loan. Mr. Grewal told the developer he intended to buy the resort for $18.5 million through his company, Vintro Resorts and Hotels Ohio LLC. He gave the lender troves of fake documents, prosecutors said.

Mr. Grewal said he planned to secure $14 million more in funding from his personal trust account. The account, however, was controlled by his ex-wife, set up for their children, and never had more than $2 million, court records say. He gave the lender falsified documentation that showed he got the money and his ex-wife signed off on it, prosecutors said.

Mr. Grewal also provided documentation to the lender that his business owned about $85 million in assets. An FBI agent wrote in court records that Mr. Grewal didn’t own several of the businesses he listed, inflating his net worth by at least $59 million.

He and Mr. Friedman in July, 2018, also showed the lender documentation that they had $17 million in a bank account; FBI agents found the account never had more than $3,800.

Mr. Grewal also provided the lender with fake documentation showing the resort in 2016 made a net profit of $2.8 million, when its true net profit was $362,000 that year, court records say. The deal closed in September, 2018. As part of the deal, Mr. Grewal agreed to put $2 million of the loan in escrow for rehab costs. He submitted false invoices that purported to show he paid a Sandusky contractor more than $600,000 to renovate the railings along the parks’ slides. Mr. Grewal spoke with the contractor, but no work was ever done, FBI agents wrote in court records.

Mr. Grewal withdrew $915,000 from the escrow account. Some of the money went to luxury cars and others went to his family trust, according to court records.

Mr. Grewal never paid water, sewer, gas, electric, or property tax bills, according to court records.