New Haven Independent

Stone lived on East Rock’s Cottage Street with his wife, Jodi, and his son, Jaden (pictured above at Halloween of 2004 in front of their former abode). Their home sat across the street from the hopping neighborhood hub, Lulu’s coffee shop. They’d rented apartments in the area for four years. With another baby on the way, they started looking to buy a home.

Stone started his search in August 2005. He wanted to live in East Rock: The high concentration of young parents, rolling strollers down to Lulu’s, made the neighborhood a good fit.

In September 2005, he found out about a house just down the street. The elderly widow who had lived at 18 Cottage St., Margaret Amrich, had passed away in February. A neighbor had tipped him off the home was up for sale. Though it needed a paint job and some fixing up, the tan two-family house looked appealing. He thought he could rent out parking spaces in the spacious, 1,156 square-foot garage.

Stone, an architect, was looking for a fixer-upper. He said he decided he would pay up to $350,000 for the prime real estate. He called the number of the executor of the woman’s estate, attorney Gabriel H. Cusanelli. Stone left a voice message.

“I tried to induce pity,” recalled Stone Tuesday. “I told him we have a child, we’re having another, we live right down the street.”

To Stone’s disappointment, he found out that the home had already been sold.

In a swift insider deal, business partners of Cusanelli’s had nabbed the property in August, according to realtor Robert Sacco, who sold the home to Mark Perez and former city dealmaker Sal Brancati for $250,000.

That sale drew concern from Attorney General Blumenthal after this question was raised: Was a “crippled children’s fund” shortchanged by the deal? The city has called the transaction “not [an] honest” reflection of the market.

Stone, too, was shocked when he heard the sale price: “We were just totally floored, because quite obviously that is undervalued.”

Their hopes at settling down on Cottage Street dashed, Stone and his family ended up moving to Westville. He said he has no complaints with the new neighborhood, but “I definitely miss Saturday morning trips to Lulu’s.”

The house is now back up for sale — for a listed price of $379,000. The owners claim they rehabbed it. The city has no building permits on file. If it sells for that price, the $129,000 profit would go to the current owners, not to the children’s fund.

“It’s Standard To Call People You Know”

How did the property get whisked off the market before neighbors like Stone got a chance to make a bid for more money?

Robert Sacco, of Sacco Vollero Realty Group LLC, gave his explanation in a conversation Tuesday.

Sacco was brought into the transaction by Attorney Cusanelli, whom the widow had appointed to take care of her estate. In her will she directed the attorney to bequeath the property to a “crippled children’s fund” run by the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.

Cusanelli’s job was to sell the home for as much as it was worth. He hired Sacco to do the job.

The city and neighbors have questioned the sale price, suggesting an undervalued sale might have shortchanged the “crippled children.”

Sacco (pictured at right) stood by the sale price Tuesday, and made his case why.

After Cusanelli contracted with him to sell the house, Sacco studied recent sales in the area and decided Amrich’s estate, with its leaky roof and leaky oil furnace, could go for up to $259,000.

Then, he said, he did what he always does: He set up a chance for investors with whom he had a relationship to snatch up the property for that asking price.

Sacco put the listing up on the MLS real estate database, accessible via password to Realtors. Before putting the home up for sale, “it’s standard to call people you know” to give them a heads up. “We have a customer base”: Cusanelli had given him a list of potential investors; Sacco had his own list, too. “You alert people ahead of time to get on [MLS] that day. “¦ You alert everybody “” that’s the name of the game.”

A PCB Ventures Member Pays Cash, Quick

Sacco said he listed the property on Aug. 20, 2005. Three people, all from the insider shortlist, made a bid on the home, according to Sacco: “One was my business partner, one was a friend of mine,” and the third was Mark Perez.

At the time, Perez happened to be in business with attorney Cusanelli. Prior to that year, Perez had been buying and selling property with Sal Brancati and Cusanelli through a business partnership called PCB Ventures, LLC.

Tuesday, Sacco revealed Perez agreed to buy the home while Perez and Cusanelli were still in business through that LLC, which had been formed on the day Amrich died.

When Sacco listed the sale, Perez “came in the same day to buy it.” He offered to buy 18 Cottage St. (pictured) with no mortgage contingency or inspection, said Sacco. Perez put down a cash deposit of $5,000, and entered a contract to buy the home that day.

What about neighbors like Stone who might have been interested in the deal, and might have paid more for the home?

“He came in too late. It’s easy to say what you would’ve paid,” said Sacco. “If you weren’t sharp enough to look at the MLS every day, oh well.”

People who buy multi-family homes in East Rock are part of a small group of investors, said Sacco. They buy up homes to rent them out to Yalies. These investors usually end up getting first dibs at a home, he said. Sacco described a property in Bridgeport he plans to sell next week. He’ll alert interested investors beforehand, put it on MLS at night, then expect an investor to sign a contract the next day.

“Probably that sale will sell” in a short amount of time. “It’s going to go before a neighbor ever sees it.”

If the purpose of selling the home was to get as much for the estate as possible to help “crippled children,” was it fair to sell the home to a business partner of Cusanelli’ before seeing what prices would have emerged from the general public?

Sacco didn’t see a problem with the alliance: “The fact that someone he knew bought it “” it happens every day.”

Unusual Timing

Perez put the deposit down in August, according to Sacco. He then waited over seven months to officially close on the home and list the sale in the city land records.

Cusanelli’s partnership with Perez and Brancati, the PCB Ventures LLC, was dissolved on March 16, 2006.

The home was then sold to Perez and Brancati for $250,000 on April 12, 2006.

To read more on the Cottage Street sale, see these previous Independent stories, listed in chronological order below:

• “‘Crippled Children’ Shortchanged?”
• “AG Investigating Cottage St. Deal”
• “City: Deal Was ‘Not Honest’”
• “No Permits On File For 18 Cottage St.”