Three New Canaan residents recently arrested for their alleged
involvement in a real estate conspiracy scheme in town are scheduled to
appear in Stamford Court on Wednesday, Sept. 18. Pleas have not yet been
made.The three residents — Ruth Jones, Adam Jones and Lynda Silvestro — turned themselves in to police on Monday, Aug. 19, after learning of warrants for their arrest for involvement in what police said appears to be a real estate scam.
Ruth Jones, 56, was charged with first degree larceny, conspiracy to commit first degree larceny, third-degree burglary and second-degree forgery.
Silvestro, 55, was charged with first-degree larceny, making a false statement in the second degree, and first degree conspiracy to commit larceny.
Adam Jones
All three are out on $50,000 bonds. They were due in Norwalk court last Thursday, Aug. 29, but their cases were continued to Sept. 18.
“There was no larceny, no forgery, no burglary and no conspiracy,” Mike Paul, president of MGP & Associates PR, speaking on behalf of Ruth Jones, told the Advertiser. “These are false allegations. The fact is this is a civil matter which is already pending in civil court with a lawsuit against Jennifer Hilton and the estate of her late father, John Hilton. Please look it up for important details.
Lynda Silvestro
An “illegal” rental
According to police, on Nov. 6, 2012, a 54-year-old woman who was renting a home on Braeburn Drive reported to police she suspected fraudulent activity. She was renting the home from New Canaan real estate agent Ruth Jones.
The complainant told police she signed a lease to rent last August 2012 and that her agreed upon rent was $6,000 a month. According to police, she paid Jones $24,000 for a security deposit and for two months’ worth of rent.
Jones, who police say was hired as a real estate agent to try to sell this house, had a six-month contract with the owner of the estate, who lives out of state. She was hired May 27, 2011, and the contract expired on Nov. 27, 2011. According to an arrest warrant for Ruth Jones, the deal was to list the home at $795,000. After the home did not sell during that time-frame, attorneys for the estate opted not to enter into another contract with Jones, police said.
According to police, Jones had a potential buyer, but that deal fell through. Police said she had no legal right to continue showing the house after November 2011, when the contract expired.
According to police, Jones rented out the house to the eventual complainant. Jones also told the complainant that if anyone asked if she was renting the home to tell them she was an interior decorator.
At some point, according to police, Jones asked for a lease agreement change, and Silvestro, who is listed as a principal at Property Management LLC on Locust Avenue, signed a lease as one of the landlords, as did Jones’s son, Adam. At that time, the elder Jones told the renter that Silvestro planned on buying the home.
After the first potential buyer’s deal fell through, police said one of the estate’s attorneys was contacted and told that Silvestro wanted to buy the home. According to police, Silvestro put a deposit of $30,000 on the house in September 2012. Later that month, when she was supposed to close, the deal fell through. According to police, Silvestro wanted to try to buy the house again and put down an additional $50,000 deposit, and this time her husband, Santo Silvestro, was on the contract with her. The Silvestros signed that contract with a new closing date of Nov. 1, 2012, police said.
At the end of October, before the Nov. 1 closing date, one of the attorneys for the estate drove by to see what kind of damage was caused to the house by Hurricane Sandy. Two attorneys for the estate saw evidence that someone was living in the home. According to police, the estate’s attorneys asked Ruth Jones’s attorney why someone was living in the house. Police said she told them that someone was living in the home in order to stage the home for a sale.
According to an arrest warrant, the estate’s attorneys were “curious as to why a home would be staged with children’s toys strewn about, dirty dishes in the sink, toothpaste on the counter in the bathroom, and two dogs playing in the yard.”
On Nov. 2, 2012, a locksmith and one of the estate’s attorneys came to change the locks, and the complainant, who was still renting, told them she was renting the house for $6,000 a month and that Jones was her Realtor. She provided the attorney with a copy of the lease agreement, according to an arrest warrant, and the two decided that the police should be notified.
According to the warrant, while the attorney was speaking with the complainant at the home, Ruth Jones called the complainant and the attorney advised her to let it go to voice mail. In the message, Ruth Jones scolds the complainant for showing the attorney the lease and explained that the lease needed to be altered.
“It was for you,” Ruth Jones says in the message, which police downloaded from the renter’s phone. “It was for you and your divorce and to get your kid into school. OK. You’re worried about lying, what about asking for a bogus lease on White Oak Shade so I can rebate you some money so you can charge your ex-husband more money … I was asking you not to have contact with anybody. I was asking you because we need to alter the lease as it stands because as of Monday there was no heat and hot water and full occupancy.”
That same day, according to the warrant, in a mobile phone text correspondence between the two, Ruth Jones asks the complainant why she had done that. “I have tried to help you and you just completely f—– Lynda, Santo and Me ?? Great Friend,” Jones wrote in a text.
“A locksmith came ready to change the locks,” the complainant responded. “Had I not been there with proof that I was a paying tenant, [child’s name] and I would have been locked out of our home. Talk about friends. I am over $35,000 into a home that you told me you owned. I hope someone is ready to write me back a big check. I don’t need this crap.”
According to the warrant, Jones told the complainant that she had never owned the house. “I told you I was selling the house and managing the house and renovation. I helped you and you are completely out of control,” Jones wrote.
The complainant wrote back: “You never told me the truth about the house and certainly led me to believe you were one of the owners,” according to the warrant.
The estate’s attorneys told police that there was never an agreement that gave Ruth Jones the authority to act as property manager, or to rent the house.
Former potential buyer
Police contacted the woman who was first going to buy the home and then renovate it for future resale. According to the warrant, she told police she had permission to renovate the residence. She said she had invested $175,000 of her money and that Jones was also going to invest.
The plan, according to the warrant, was Jones was supposed to sell the property then close the deal with the estate. When that deal was done, she would recover her $175,000 investment and split the profits with Ruth Jones.
The woman told police that she backed out of the deal because she needed the capital to fund her own business. She also told police she had not yet been paid back her $175,000. She also told police that she knew a new investor, Lynda Silvestro, was supposed to take over.
On Nov. 27, 2012, according to the warrant, Ruth Jones was actively showing the home on her website in February 2012 and August 2012 and that the home was listed for sale for $1,369,000 in February and then again in August 2012 at the same price. In addition, in August 2012, the home was listed on her website for rent for $6,500 per month.
“This is clearly outside the dates of her exclusive contract and without authorization from the Hiltons or the Hilton estate,” the warrant states.
Silvestro’s alleged role
According to police, Silvestro put a deposit of $30,000 down on the house in September 2012, but the deal fell through. Later on, Silvestro wanted to try to buy the house again and put down an additional $50,000 deposit, and this time her husband, Santo Silvestro, was on the contract with her. The Silvestros signed that contract with a new closing date of Nov. 1, 2012, police said.
When Silvestro and Adam Jones signed their names to the rental agreement, according to police, Silvestro first told police that the signature on the lease was not hers and that it was forged. Police said her $30,000 was being managed from Property Management LLC account then deposited into another account. Police also said that based on an agreement between Property Management and Jones, that Jones had permission to sign Silvestro’s name.
According to Silvestro’s arrest warrant, the second time she was summoned to speak with police, Silvestro said she had been doing her own investigation and found that one of the attorneys for the estate had been having an affair with the renter and that he “stands to make a lot of money in the deal.”
Silvestro, who police said wanted nothing to do with the deal after the first interview, changed her mind after she said she thought about the first potential buyer losing all the money she invested in the property to fix it up. According to the warrant, she told police she wanted to do the right thing.
In addition, Silvestro told police during the second interview that when she found out the $24,000 was still in the Property Management account, she wire transferred the money to Attorney Ed Gavin’s office. According to the warrant, she stated that she “told Gavin to ‘give it to the police’ or ‘return it to Hilton’ just do whatever he needed to do with the money.”
Officer Kevin P. Casey, who has been investigating this case, said he explained to Silvestro that he had conflicting information that says Silvestro told Gavin to hold the money in escrow until a joint agreement is reached or the court orders him to dispense the money.
“I explained to Lynda Silvestro that taking control of the $24,000 that are proceeds from a larceny and instructing that they be withheld could open her up to criminal liability in this case,” Casey wrote in the warrant.
According to the warrant, she told Casey she did that because she is a principal of Property Management and she wanted to get the money out of the account so someone could decide what to do with it later.
According to the warrant, as of Jan. 6, 2013, Silvestro’s attorney still maintains control over the money at Silvestro’s request and none of the money has been returned or attempted to be returned to the Hilton estate.
Regarding Silvestro’s signature on the lease, she at first told police that it was forgery in her sworn statement, but when police asked if that was still the case, Silvestro said she never said it was forgery, but that her name was spelled incorrectly. Police then asked her if Ruth Jones had the authority to sign her name, and, according to the warrant, she stated “yes.” Casey asked Silvestro why she didn’t tell police that, and she stated she forgot, according to the warrant.
Casey eventually told Silvestro there were a lot of conflicting statements based on what she said in both interviews. According to the warrant, Casey asked her to provide another sworn statement. She asked him if she could take it home and write it. He said she could, but that she had to get it back later that day and that it had to be signed and sworn in front of an officer.
As of Jan. 6, 2013, Casey reported in the warrant that Silvestro had not provided any additional sworn statements.
