UPDATED, Jan. 17, 5:25 p.m.: Prominent Wellington developer Glenn Straub was charged with larceny and is out on bond after he turned himself into the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office on Friday morning.
Straub, who owns part of the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club, was charged in relation to an alleged fraudulent lien on an ex-girlfriend’s property. The Palm Beach Post first reported the news. Straub posted $11,000 in bail.
In addition to being charged with filing a fraudulent lien, Straub was arrested and charged with the unlawful filing of false documents or records against real or personal property, and with grand theft. The false liens are valued at $77,380, according to the sheriff’s office.
Straub’s ex-girlfriend, Jessica Nicodema, alleged Straub filed fraudulent liens on her home in 2017 after Straub was upset with her for breaking up with him, according to court documents.
A spokesperson for the Wellington developer said Straub “will fight the charges and he will be exonerated.”
“Here we have a vindictive ex-girlfriend who has turned a simple civil dispute over her unpaid construction bills into a criminal complaint by spinning false tales to law enforcement,” according to the spokesperson.
Elizabeth Parker, the lawyer representing Nicodema, said in a statement that the evidence in the criminal case shows that the liens filed by Straub and his company were fraudulent. Straub allegedly told Nicodema that he filed the liens to control her, in a phone call recorded by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, Parker said. “The criminal charges send a strong message that Glenn Straub is not above the law,” she added.
Last year, Straub sold a 150-acre portion of the Palm Beach Polo and Country Club property in Wellington for $16 million. His companies paid $27 million for the 2,250-acre club at a government auction in 1993.
Straub has another ongoing appeal in federal court over his alleged bid to buy the failed Palm House hotel in Palm Beach. Straub claims he holds a defaulted $27.5 million mortgage on the property. In February, a federal bankruptcy judge ruled against Straub’s no-cash bid to buy the unfinished property.
Straub sold the former Miami Arena in downtown Miami for $35 million in 2012. In 2016, he paid $82 million for the former Revel casino, in Atlantic City.