The decision from U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Christopher Sontchi on Tuesday is the latest in a string of scathing rulings in which the judge has called Urban Commons executives Taylor Woods and Howard Wu “fraudsters” for allegedly absconding with $2.4 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans that were meant to help Queen Mary employees during the pandemic.
The judge has found Woods and Wu in contempt for not following orders to account for the money and has even threatened to order them into custody. In the latest tactic to get the pair to comply, the judge said Woods and Wu will now be fined $250 per day starting Jan. 1, until they can come up with the funds or provide an accurate accounting of their personal finances and how the loan money was spent.
The accounting so far, the judge said, has been “woefully insufficient and ripe with fraudulent inconsistencies.”
“One would have thought the issuance of the Contempt Order and the Sanction Order would serve to make it clear to Mr. Woods and Mr. Wu that continued fraudulent behavior would not be tolerated by the Court and it was time to make a complete and forthright accounting,” Sontchi wrote. “Clearly, Defendants have not gotten the message.”
Woods, Wu and their company, Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm Urban Commons, have faced a litany of lawsuits and debt since they took over as operators of the Queen Mary in 2015. Urban Commons declared bankruptcy earlier this year and gave up…
