Ellen Frost, an elected commissioner in Buncombe County, North Carolina, faces up to 20 years imprisonment for misusing over $575,000 of public funds on out-of-county expenditure benefitting Tryon, Wellington and other equestrian enterprises of show mogul Mark Bellissimo.
Frost faces 11 counts, including conspiracy to commit Federal Program Fraud, mail fraud, and aiding and abetting of the same.
The 27-page indictment handed down by a federal grand jury in Asheville, North Carolina, charts a series of five- and six-figure payments during 2015 and 2016 to Tryon Equestrian Centre, Palm Beach International Equestrian Centre, and to other companies associated with Bellissimo. These payments were authorised by Frost and by the former county manager Wanda Greene under the “cover” of promoting Asheville Regional Airport through the county’s “economic development incentive” fund.
Greene, who retired from Buncombe in 2017, has already co-operated with investigators and come to a plea agreement, as have other county officers including Greene’s son on lesser charges.
It is unclear why Frost was not indicted till this month. She is the first elected official to be indicted as the U.S. Attorney’s Office continues to investigate county government corruption. Mail fraud, the most serious of the 11 charges carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence.
There is no suggestion that Bellissimo or Asheville airport knew that funds resulted from criminal activity by Buncombe County personnel or that they breached state law.
The other Buncombe commissioners were also unaware at the time. When one county employee queried the issue of one $125,000 cheque to Tryon, Greene allegedly terminated her employment.
It is also alleged that Frost seriously misled fellow commissioners about the extent of the payments when they first raised concerns in 2016. The true sum only emerged after Greene’s retirement, when county employees re-examined expenditures.
Frost was elected at the end of 2012 and served till December 2018. The indictment says she has an “avid” interest in equestrianism, and showed her own horses at Tryon.
Frost and Greene first discussed supporting Tryon when the centre opened in 2014. Tryon is in Polk County, which is separated from Buncombe by Henderson county. It was Greene who suggested taking $250,000 out of the economic incentive fund to sponsor a Grand Prix.
The alleged misuse of funds came to the prosecutor’s and other commissioners’ attention after exposes by the Asheville Citizen Times in 2016. The indictment refers to a Times article in which Frost initially commented that Greene took the payments to a “level she could not imagine.” Yet the Times obtained records showing Frost’s deep involvement in arranging sponsorships, receiving copies of invoices and her regular attendance at dinners with Mr Bellissimo and other expensive trips out of state.
In a radio interview this week, https://www.bpr.org/post/frost-indictment-what-it-alleges#stream/0 reporter Jennifer Bowman explains how she and colleague John Boyle unravelled the scandal. Boyle was shown an invoice for $25,000 in response to one of his earliest enquiries to Greene. But it eventually emerged that one digit has been removed. The indictment says that document had been forged and the real sum was $125,000.
Tryon received $275,000 in total. Other documents show that Frost and Greene committed Buncombe to $150,000 worth of sponsorship at Palm Beach’s Winter Equestrian Festival, and to $150,000 worth of advertising in the name of Asheville airport in Chronicle of the Horse, which is owned by Bellissimo.
One of Frost’s most substantial perks was a two-year VIP hospitality contract in the Legends Club at Tryon, enjoyed mostly by Frost’s friends and her other personal contacts. No other Buncombe county commissioner knew this facility was available, and while the table was in the name of Asheville airport, airport personnel had to contact Frost for permission to use it.
In January 2015, Buncombe county was charged $2,497 for Frost and Greene’s weekend trip to the WEF. On other occasion Frost charged the $4,151 cost of a dinner to promote Tryon at the Grand Bohemian Hotel to her personal credit card, they claimed it back from Buncombe, saying $3,880 of it was attributable to “miscellaneous travel expenses.”
Greene and Frost also charged Buncombe for their $6,344 trip to New York, purportedly to inspect the equine quarantine facility at Newburgh. But the indictment alleges they skipped Newburg, and instead went shopping and racing at Saratoga Springs.
Announcing the indictment, U.S. Attorney Andrew Murray commended the FBI, IRS-CI and the SBI for their investigation of this case.
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