By JEFF TESTERMAN and BILL COATS
Published May 21, 2004
TAMPA - Hillsborough Property Appraiser Rob Turner flipped through the records of the sprawling, 31,000-square-foot Avila mansion recently sold by former corporate raider Paul Bilzerian and shook his head again and again.
"I'm amazed at this price," Turner said Thursday. "I'm baffled."
The U.S. government said last year the 11-bedroom home with the second-floor basketball court and the home theater was worth $8-million. It was listed for sale four months ago at $7.1-million. Turner put fair market value at $6.2-million.
The price paid last week: $2.55-million. Approved by the U.S. government.
The new owner is a partnership run by a mystery millionaire, reportedly visiting Belgium now. He can be glimpsed chiefly through government records.
There, Jacques Chrysochoos bears a checkered resemblance to Bilzerian.
Bilzerian, 53, was convicted in 1989 of securities fraud. Chrysochoos, 37, was banned from the securities industry last year.
Bilzerian built his mega-mansion after he was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $62-million. Chrysochoos bought the mansion after he was sued by a former securities client for $21-million.
The relatively low sale price is not going to translate into lower property taxes, Turner said.
"The buyer may have made the deal of the century," said a skeptical Turner. "But that doesn't set the value we'll put on the home. We're doing our homework now to see what's going on with this deal."
Turner pulled the record of another recent sale in Avila, a home sold in February for $2.5-million. This home, with about the same price tag, is newer. But at 6,900 square feet, it is much smaller. In fact, it is not much bigger than the guest house at Steffen Manor, which Bilzerian named for his wife, Terri Steffen.
In tax disputes from the mid 1990's, Bilzerian frequently argued that his home at 16229 Villarreal de Avila was overbuilt, too spacious to have any marketability in the Tampa Bay area and thus worth much less than the millions it took to build it.
No more.
"The world of real estate has changed," said Turner. "Bilzerian's from a size standpoint still stands above the rest, but a multimillion-dollar mansion is no longer unique or unmarketable in Hillsborough County."
Now, more than 800 homes top the $1-million mark in value, according to Turner's records. Of those, 61 are worth $2.5-million or more.
Yet not one matches the scale of Steffen Manor.
In 2000, the house became a pawn in the federal government's struggle to obtain some of the $33-million it says Bilzerian fraudulently earned through corporate takeover schemes. A federal judge in Washington appointed a private receiver to take over Bilzerian's assets.
Later, Bilzerian was jailed for nearly a year after a judge concluded he was hiding assets. He and Steffen each had declared bankruptcy. A 2002 agreement setting Bilzerian free included a commitment to give up a variety of stocks and properties. The Avila mansion was to be sold, and the proceeds split evenly between the government and the Bilzerians.
Last month, Steffen filed a notice in her bankruptcy case that the house was to be sold. It included a contract with American Heritage Auctioneers of Clearwater listing the "total purchase price" of $2.55-million. The notice said the government receiver had approved the sale.
The receiver, attorney Deborah Meshulam of Washington, did not return telephone calls from the Times.
This wasn't the first time Bilzerian and Steffen have raised hackles by selling on the cheap.
Two years ago, Steffen riled government lawyers by signing a deed to sell a Minnesota property for $320,000. The value was $480,000, according to bankruptcy papers.
Arguing for the protection of creditors, a U.S. Justice Department attorney called the transfer a "secret sale." The Justice official said the sale had never been approved by the bankruptcy court and complained that there was "inadequate information to determine that the sale was was an arm's length transaction for an adequate price."
Chrysochoos, the apparent buyer of the Avila mansion, had other plans a few years earlier.
He and his wife, Leslie, hired an architect in 2000 to design a canal-front house on Tampa's Harbour Island. But architect Leon Goldenberg of Tampa and Chrysochoos had a falling out six months later, leading to a lien and a lawsuit.
Three months after that, Chrysochoos sold the lot for $1.35-million to Joel Glazer, executive vice president of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Architect Goldenberg won a judgment of $11,451 last year, plus attorneys' fees and costs of $18,638. Chrysochoos is appealing.
The securities lawsuit is for much higher stakes.
Samir Ahmad El Masri, of Belgium, contends he invested about $1-million with Chrysochoos when he was a broker at Shields & Co. of St. Petersburg. Chrysochoos made $34-million in trades in El Masri's accounts over 18 months, without the client's authorization, the suit contends.
It claims $774,702 in "out of pocket damages" and demands $20-million in punitive damages.
El Masri's Atlanta-based attorney, Hassan Elkhalil, said El Masri complained about Chrysochoos to the National Association of Securities Dealers. That led the NASD to evidence that Chrysochoos participated in outside business activities without notifying Shields & Co. Among the complaints was one that he raised $1.3-million from investors in 2000 in private securities transactions.
