TAMPA, Fla. — A federal decide has dominated {that a} Clearwater businessman is answerable for a $122 million shortfall discovered within the books of a bankrupt St. Petersburg nonprofit that oversaw medical belief funds for greater than 2,000 individuals with accidents or disabilities.
Center District of Florida Decide Roberta Colton final week signed a abstract judgment in opposition to Leo Govoni that was introduced by chapter trustee Michael Goldberg. It empowers him to go after the belongings of Govoni, whose Boston Finance Group was given a $100 million mortgage from the Heart for Particular Wants Belief Administration.
The decide additionally authorised the trustee’s request for a short lived restraining order stopping Govoni from promoting off belongings from greater than 100 corporations that both he owns or obtained funds from the middle.
Commercial – Proceed Studying Beneath
In requesting the order, Goldberg said that cash transferred to Boston Finance was moved onto many different of Govoni’s corporations. The checklist consists of Massive Storm Brewing, the craft beer enterprise based mostly in Clearwater that Govoni ran together with his son.
Govoni can also be on the middle of an FBI investigation into the funds of the middle. Courtroom information state that the nonprofit authorised the mortgage shortly after Govoni give up as the middle’s director in 2009. It was taken from belief funds arrange for kids with Down syndrome and different disabilities, individuals not in a position to work due to medical circumstances and victims of street accidents who want lifelong costly medical care.
The cash was by no means absolutely repaid.
Goldberg sued Govoni and Boston Finance as a part of his try and get well as a lot of the lacking chapter property as attainable. The lawsuit included a replica of paperwork that listed Govoni because the guarantor of the mortgage.
The restraining order will expire after 14 days however Decide Colton is scheduled to listen to argument this week on a extra everlasting injunction.
She wrote that the information submitted by the trustee and his authorized staff show a “substantial probability” that, with out the restraining order, Govoni and his associates will switch or “dissipate belongings” that had been bought with cash taken from the belief funds.
“The (trustee) has proven a probability of entitlement to both all or a considerable portion of the defendants’ belongings,” Colton wrote.
It’s unclear how a lot Govoni’s corporations are price.
His portfolio consists of actual property corporations that personal property. However Govoni in August agreed to an injunction to promote 11 properties in Florida and Kentucky price about $3.8 million to assist resolve a civil criticism introduced by the Florida Lawyer Basic’s workplace.
It had accused him and enterprise associates of stealing greater than $2 million from a second belief fund nonprofit that was administering 48 belief funds. It prompted the decide within the Pinellas County case to quickly freeze his financial institution accounts.
A monetary adviser, Govoni based the middle in 2000 together with Pinellas legal professional John Staunton. He grew it into one of many greatest belief fund directors within the nation.
Greater than 1,500 trusts had been siphoned for the mortgage, which was paid out over a 15-year interval, courtroom information state. It left some households of these with accidents or disabilities struggling to pay for medical and dwelling bills.
Courtroom information state that Govoni orchestrated the mortgage by sustaining management of the middle even after he left. Corporations that he owned had been contracted to run the nonprofit’s accounting, payroll, I.T. and human assets.
Govoni lived a lavish life-style after the road of credit score was authorised, information present. He flew associates on his $3.4 million personal jet to look at the Kentucky Derby from his govt suite at Churchill Downs. He doled out tons of of hundreds of {dollars} in marketing campaign contributions to politicians.
He has not been charged with any crimes and his attorneys have mentioned that he denies the allegations.
His attorneys disputed the quantity of legal responsibility in hearings on the abstract judgment, stating that Govoni probably owed the middle round $30 million.
However the decide was swayed by an evaluation of the books of each the middle and Boston Finance by Kevin McCoy, a forensic accounting and investigator employed by the trustee.
McCoy mentioned in an affidavit that his investigation confirmed that slightly below $100 million from the middle had been transferred to Govoni’s firm and that $39.4 million is owed in unpaid curiosity. Boston Finance paid again $18.8 million, McCoy discovered.
© 2025 Tampa Bay Occasions
Distributed by Tribune Content material Company, LLC