Embattled developer Justin French was arrested at Richmond International Airport early this morning by a Virginia State Police agent and is being detained at the City of Richmond Jail.
French was arrested at 5:35 a.m. without incident by a State Police special agent accountant. “We had information that informed us he was at the airport, information gathered through the course of the investigation,” said Corinne Geller, a public relations manager for the state police.
French was charged with four counts of forging a public document and four counts of uttering a forged document as well as for an outstanding warrant from the City Richmond for writing a bad check.
He is to be arraigned in Richmond General District Court on Monday morning. He will spend the weekend in jail, officials said.
The U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed that French was picked up today and is being held at the jail but would not disclose more about federal involvement. An RBS investigation of state historic tax credit documents has revealed the costs on many of French’s development projects were much higher than the norm, allowing the projects to recoup high levels of credits. Read that story here.
On Thursday, Aug. 5, FBI and IRS agents raided French’s Shockoe Slip office. Read more about that here.
Reporters Al Harris and Michael Schwartz contributed to this report.
Embattled developer Justin French was arrested at Richmond International Airport early this morning by a Virginia State Police agent and is being detained at the City of Richmond Jail.
French was arrested at 5:35 a.m. without incident by a State Police special agent accountant. “We had information that informed us he was at the airport, information gathered through the course of the investigation,” said Corinne Geller, a public relations manager for the state police.
French was charged with four counts of forging a public document and four counts of uttering a forged document as well as for an outstanding warrant from the City Richmond for writing a bad check.
He is to be arraigned in Richmond General District Court on Monday morning. He will spend the weekend in jail, officials said.
The U.S. Attorney’s office confirmed that French was picked up today and is being held at the jail but would not disclose more about federal involvement. An RBS investigation of state historic tax credit documents has revealed the costs on many of French’s development projects were much higher than the norm, allowing the projects to recoup high levels of credits. Read that story here.
On Thursday, Aug. 5, FBI and IRS agents raided French’s Shockoe Slip office. Read more about that here.
Reporters Al Harris and Michael Schwartz contributed to this report.
OK, so maybe he wasn’t in Nepal.
Just headed there.
Looks like someone was trying to skip out on something. Well he is back in jail again what a surprise.
Charges seem a little light to me. But maybe more will come later. If each is a class 5 felony he could get a max of 40 to 80 years. And that is no small amount of time. Past history could work against him.
My guess is that the full flood of charges will come later. They needed something to hold him in order to prevent his departure.
Oh boy. This is gonna be an epic saga, isn’t it? Or it could be nasty, brutish, and short. Depends on what the evidence is, and what kind of defense he mounts. I’m waiting with bated breath to hear who he’s hired to represent him… On the flip side, what the heck were the folks at the state and federal level thinking when they approved the tax credits? Seems like the epitome of rubber-stamping. Wonder if French still has any cash to pay the lawyer he’s going to need so desperately. If he ain’t got cash, nasty-brutish-and-short will likely be… Read more »
How does someone like this borrow millions of dollars and most small businesses now can not borrow a few thousand dollars for their business.
OK – so how is the little wifey going to respond to this????? he is crooked as hell and has totally ripped off tax payers as well as many others. So much for the lush life on Oak Lane – lets see how he likes being behind bars AGAIN.
taken from “strategic” default RBS article on June 30 from Justin himself…. To all of my friends that have stood by me and spoken up, I sincerely thank you for that. To all of the others that want to take cowardly, hidden, uninformed cheap shots at me, or oppose me in any way as I fight to win against Markel, please consider the following: If you are prepared to sell your house and uproot your family as I have, if you are prepared to sell everything you own to settle all accounts, if you are prepared to watch your wife… Read more »
Casey…When I read your comment, I was thinking the same thing about who might represent this “low life”. My guess is Magic Mike who loves the limelight and is somewhat successful in representing these types of criminals. No matter who represents this jerk, he’s guilty as hell and deserves much jail time; and based on his past experience in the slammer, he should feel right at home.
in reference to Casey Quinlan’s comment about the approval process of tax credits, it is done through the Dept of Historic resources and they are sweating over there.
If you don’t consider Justin French completely innocent you are most assuredly an imbecile. This man has exhibited the utmost qualities of patriotism with his unending devotion to his community, friendship to neighbors and respect to the laws under which his business is governed. Throughout all of these stories of alleged “corruption” his honesty has shined. Justin French is a true visionary. No other developer in Richmond could initiate such brilliant plans as hiring graffiti artists to decorate properties under receivership. Mr. French has repeatedly shown his expertise by investing millions of dollars into questionable properties for the good of… Read more »
RTD is reporting that the state didn’t give the credits for all his projects–straight from director’s mouth. Yet this article implies they did. Hmm.
Just to clarify, DHR has stated that they have recently held up an unspecified number of tax credit applications. Over the last several years, many of them have been approved.
I tell you he was framed! Set up! It’s not his fault. Just ask him 🙂
What a fool.
John Honey is his attorney. There is much more coming and others are going down as well due to the tax credit thing. If you had ever had a meeting with him you knew out of the gate something didn’t feel right. But when you knew who his partners were it made you feel better. Who at Markel did their due diligence???
I too believe that there are more players to follow. If you read what mr. gamino says; “uh, I didn’t know anything…”. Yeah right. Notice the small “g”. The architect is keeping tight lipped. Why? Because he is peeking from the blinds to see who’s knocking on his door. “who me”. It’s absolutely laughable that these guys will take the money but run like thieves in the night. These guys knew what they were engaged in and, to the wives; women, stop letting you’re so called partner put everything that you and your children have on the line for the… Read more »
@ Kevin Anderson – Is this some sort of sarcasm or are you serious in your statement? What will be your response if more serious charges are brought against him? Really, I’m just curious at what point will you stop defending him with such fervor or is this just a joke?
Mr. Anderson,
You obviously are not one of us that have been looked straight in the eye and lied to so many times. Please realize there are many of us subs left owing, tens of thousands of dollars to suppliers for these projects based on agreements from Mr. French and his controller.
Irony…What is your IQ?
@ Bill – Why would you ask that?? The question is quite simple; Does Mr Anderson really believe what he has stated or is he just trolling for attention?
Again, why would you ask that question and what does it have to do with this article?
Irony…The comment has nothing to do with the article, but everything to do with your consistently ignorant messages. Please keep sending them up so that I and others can enjoy the affects of your obvious lack of common sense.
Bill, why don’t you worry about your friend Justin and not other people who comment. Looking at the other comments youve made on other articles it looks like you have more dirt on French that what’s being reported. Why don’t you share?
@Bill – You’re the only one that seems to have an issue with my questions, which I’m continuing to find intriguing. You seem to take issue with the fact that I ask questions instead of of moving in lock step with your comments. Another interested party attempted to do the same thing in another article, but ended up looking foolish for a comment that was off topic. One thing, I did notice that you appear to ignore Kevin Anderson’s comment, yet attack my question on whether he is serious or just trolling. Very strange. Anyway here’s the best part…You’ll get… Read more »
If you read Kevin’s whole comment, you would know it was irony.
I don’t know sean, I’ve read what Kevin said and it looks pretty serious to me. I find the drama between Bill and Irony more interesting than these stories. Other than what’s unfolding, the rest is just old news.
Irony…I hope you read Sean’s comment since he was smart enough to realize that Kevin’s comments were, in fact, nothing short of ironical. Now your question is finally answered…I hope.
Now you and Sean are attempting to answer the original question? Why didn’t you just say you believe he is being sarcastic in the first place instead of questioning my IQ?? Really? If these questions make you uncomfortable just say so. Good grief. I’m sure Mr Anderson, yourself and others find statements like that funny and entertaining while the actual victims of Mr French’s dealings are not very happy with the situation, just ask Stung! or just read his reply to the same statement. You may laugh and give your fragile little ego a boost by attempting to make others… Read more »
Irony…Your questions/comments would never make me feel uncomfortable, only amused.. Keep up the good work!
Enough. We’ll hear more in due course.
Clearly it was a joke. I don’t feel sorry for anyone who got burned by this guy. Anyone who makes a habit of entering into business deals with a convicted cocaine dealer/gun trafficker, will not be in business long. There are no excuses, it was already in the public record that this guy has a slimy past. The subcontractors I know would never work with an individual like this, and thats why they’re surviving through the recession instead of filing liens for thousands they will never see.
Bill was correct in this instance that Kevin Anderson’s post was sarcastic, but Bill has been and continues to be out of line. He posted a comment in response to one I made on another subject that was naive and based on a complete lack of understanding of the subject matter. Even so, he mocked my position like he has mocked others. These posts provide a good forum for discussion, but that’s not what Bill is apparently seeking.
@Kevin Anderson – Wow, brutal honesty…How refreshing. Kevin since I’m not a contractor, what resource is out there would a contractor or even sub-contractor could use to dig more into a company that hires like this? I know that most of this is public record, but since French seems to be part owner or part whatever in some of these companies is there a single resource that they can go to and find out who’s really in the background? Government? Union Hall? Chamber?
mr. k anderson, Ive done business with him, he was great to work for (he paid me). i was going to do more business with him when he was labeled and known to everyone as a ‘golden boy’. thats not right to say that about those contractors and subs, they thought they were weathering the recession quite well. i.e.: i do agree with your overall point, “economics/something i learned in the science museum in second grade” : the food source has to match the predators consumption” when things go bad and things get ahead of itself in this case too… Read more »
If you want to make the connection between Lacy & French. Look at property like this one:
http://eservices.ci.richmond.va.us/applications/PropertySearch/Detail.aspx?pin=W0000046004
They both had a part in that building.
Follow the money!!!!!!
Well, According to Mr. Anderson we all won’t be in business long, I’ll get the memo out today!
Markel
First Union
Gateway
Bank of Hampton Roads
Paragon Bank
Dozens of Subs
Does anyone know if someone will be finishing the projects that French started?
@Interested Party- at this point that is up to the courts to decide after they sort out ownership interests- especially on the liened buildings. It will probably take a long, long time given how convoluted this appears to be.
I have never heard of a bank doing a background check on a borrower? I dont know if that would even be legal? While its public information, I doubt you could use that information in your underwriting standards….and if you ever did it once, you better be doing it on every customer or you will open yourself up to a lawsuit.
I am sure that there is lots of information still to come on Mr. French….
@Anonymous, Mr. French has also filed for bankruptcy before securing the loans. I’m pretty sure a bank can use your bankruptcy filing against you when seeking a loan. @Stung & Nicolai: The banks will be OK, they are (in these ridiculous times we live in) backstopped against losses on their loans by the government, my point was that subs who repeatedly deal with people like Mr. French will eventually take on a job too big to write off. I firmly believe that if you deal with a character like this long enough, they will burn you. I’m not saying perform… Read more »