Writing Shotgun

AUDIT REPORTS THAT PREVRATIL’S A PILLAGER! UHH, THAT’S NEWS?

Dave WielengaWed. June 11
 

A just-released financial audit revealing how Queen Mary operator Joe Prevratil used a shell game-style financial structure to enrich himself by nearly $8 million while driving Long Beach’s city icon into bankruptcy basically backs up and amplifies a story reported by The District Weekly last July.

Howard M. Ehrenberg, the court-appointed trustee for the Queen Mary during bankruptcy—who is currently opposing the City of Long Beach’s actions to pursue those millions—got irritated when The District Weekly asked about Prevratil’s possible financial irregularities last summer.

“Rather than throwing mud,” Ehrenberg scolded last July, “why don’t you focus on the fact that we are less than one month away from an auction for [the Queen Mary] lease? That’s good news.”

But disturbing evidence presented by former Community Development Advisory commissioner Juan Pardell—an appointee of ex-Mayor Beverly O’Neill—suggested that Prevratil had improperly diverted approximately $2.3 million from the not-for-profit RMS Foundation that ran the ship to a private corporation called Leisure Horizons … which Prevratil owns, operates and is the sole employee.

Pardell referred to a court filing that indicates Prevratil transferred the money between late 2003 and mid 2005 in 37 payments ranging from $25,850 to $135,000. Other documents show that neither Prevratil nor his partner, Howard Bell, requested permission from the California Attorney General to engage in these self-dealing transactions, nor declared them afterward—both of which are required by law.

Pardell also referred, rather sadly, to the then-approaching Aug. 14 bankruptcy court auction of the lease to operate the Queen Mary, which Prevratil had been running for nearly 20 years—virtually without oversight and always while claiming poverty.

“This shows that there were resources to pay off debts,” Pardell said. “The Queen Mary does make money; there was just too much going into entities owned by Joe Prevratil.”

 Today’s story in the Press-Telegram is available by [clicking here]

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