Alberto Vilar

• Alberto Vilar was a wealthy investor in early internet companies who financed lawsuits that unsuccessfully tried to block Trump's construction of the Trump International Hotel and Tower near the United Nations. “The musical education of Alberto Vilar started when he first heard a violin back in his homeland of Cuba. […] What Vilar has become, as he has grown rich from early investments in Internet stocks, is the go-to patron of the arts. […] Vilar began his career in finance in 1964 with Citicorp, right in the Park Avenue building where his own offices now take up a floor. In 1980 he and a partner started his company and soon they were early investors in Microsoft, Oracle, America Online, Cisco, eBay and Yahoo! The age of the Internet was dawning. When those companies took off, Vilar became rich. […] He has a 32-room triplex near the United Nations building, filled with art, including statues of Mozart. […] And when the titan real estate developer Donald Trump was building a 72-story tower that blocked his view, Vilar financed the legal battle to stop it. He lost. “(Washington Post, April 1, 2001)
• Donald Trump later expressed sympathy for Vilar, calling it "terrible" when he was indicted for defrauding an investor out of $5 million. “When Alberto Vilar attended the opera at the Met -- which he did a few dozen times a year -- he nearly always sat by himself. But the man never seemed quite as alone as he did yesterday, seated by his lawyer in a Manhattan courtroom and fighting to get out of jail. Vilar, once a stock-market superstar and a spectacularly generous donor to the Kennedy Center and the Washington Opera, among many arts organizations around the world, could have used some wealthy friends. But none were around yesterday as his lawyer tried to free him from his cell in the Metropolitan Correction Center, where he's bunked since his arrest last week for allegedly bilking an investment client out of $5 million. […]Strange but true, you have to go to Vilar's enemies these days to find someone who'll say he's getting the shaft. ‘He's a miserable human being and a basic scumbag,’ said Donald Trump yesterday. ‘He spent $2 million trying to fight me when I wanted to build the Trump World Towers’ because it obstructed the view from Vilar's apartment at United Nations Plaza. ‘He was intractable and foolish and he ended up getting his [butt] kicked by me.’ Trump means that the towers were built. “But he gave millions to charities and they've treated him like garbage,’ he adds. ‘I think that's terrible. The least they could say is thank you.’” (Washington Post, June 4, 2005)
• Vilar was convicted on twelve criminal counts in 2008 and served a ten year sentence. "Venture capitalist and arts supporter Alberto Vilar, 78, for whom the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek is named, has been released from the Fort Dix Correctional facility in New Jersey. Vilar was arrested in May 2005 on charges of investor fraud and convicted in 2008 on 12 counts for his dealings through Amerindo Advisors, his investment company. His 10-year sentence ended with a “supervised release,” said his attorney, Vivian Shevitz. Federal prosecutors initially charged Vilar and his partner, Gary Tanaka, with stealing $22 million dollars from some of their investors. Shevitz said all those investors have been repaid with interest — all with money that Shevitz pointed out had been frozen by federal officials all along." (Vail Daily October 6, 2018)
• Vilar's past was shrouded in mysteries, which he reinforced by threatening relation against an ex-girlfriend and alleged fraud victim who hired a private investigator to research his past. “Among the known personal details about Vilar are he was married once, later divorced and in 2002, he proposed to a musicologist named Karen Painter, who is 24 years his junior, but the wedding was delayed and the engagement later called off. Then there was his relationship with one Lisa Mayer, a former girlfriend who in November sued Vilar for allegedly stealing $11.2 million from her and her sister. They say Vilar refused to return the money, which they'd given him to invest. When they demanded the money back and hired a former FBI agent to investigate Vilar's past, he threatened to tangle them up in litigation forever. ‘The family's patrimony will become hostage to these proceedings,’ Vilar told his former girlfriend, according to the Mayers' complaint. […] ‘I found two bank accounts,’ said Justin Brasch. ‘There was $100 in one and nothing in the other. He's either broke or hiding it well.’” (Washington Post, June 4, 2005)
• Vilar pledged to give millions of dollars to various music-related and art-related charities, but it was unclear how much of the pledged money he had actually donated. "A decade ago, hardly anyone in the classical music world had heard the name Alberto Vilar. But that changed when he started promising huge checks to symphonies and opera companies -- it's unclear how much he actually handed over. That spree made him a kind of international celebrity benefactor. There he was, offering $24 million to the Los Angeles opera, $6 million to the music festival in Salzburg, $17 million to refurbish the Royal Opera House in London. A couple of million was supposed to go to his alma mater, Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, for a music program allowing students to attend classical concerts gratis. And on it went." (Washington Post, June 4, 2005)