Donald Trump is being advised on business policy by executives who suffered multimillion-dollar bankruptcies, were sued by authorities for not paying large tax bills, and were accused of failing to act against sexual assault in the workplace.
A review of court filings, tax records and other documents found some members of Trump’s new Small Business Advisory Council had made serious corporate missteps while others were not, in fact, small business owners at all.
According to a briefing document released by the campaign, the panel is advising the Republican presidential nominee on issues such as regulation and tax. “For the first time in a long time Small Businesses are concerned enough that they will be a very strong coalition for the Trump Pence in 2016 [sic],” the document said.
At least two members of the council have endured bankruptcy after becoming unable to pay debts. Trump, a property developer and television host, has put six companies into bankruptcy since 1991. His campaign did not respond to requests for comment about the advisers.
A mail-order furniture company in North Carolina owned by Ed Broyhill, one of the Trump advisers, entered bankruptcy in 1995 with reported liabilities of $7.5m. A reported 4,800 people, many ordinary customers who had paid deposits for pieces of furniture, were owed money by Broyhill’s company, according to a list of creditors. Some were still trying to recoup a few hundred dollars of losses more than 15 years after proceedings began, according to federal court filings.
Broyhill, a 62-year-old former finance chairman of the North Carolina Republicans, now leads a property development company and an investment firm. He ran for Congress unsuccessfully in 2004. In an interview, Broyhill said every creditor who made an effort to recover their money was repaid.
“There was not one instance of any loss that was not negotiated to the satisfaction of everybody,” he said. According to a 2004 letter from the bankruptcy trustee, Broyhill contributed $3m toward paying off the company’s debts.
Another Trump adviser, Oklahoma-based real estate broker Dennis Bradford, declared bankruptcy in 2012 with liabilities of more than $3.1m, according to court filings in Oklahoma City. Bradford, 71, is one of the co-chairs of Trump’s council.
Bradford and his wife reported that they owed millions of dollars in business debt, outstanding loans, credit card bills and other costs such as $6,500 in membership dues to their country club. The Bradfords reported $99,000 in tax liabilities to several states and the federal government.
In an interview, Bradford said he had worked his way back to success in business. He blamed the bankruptcy on the 2008 downturn in the Florida real estate market.
“My background has absolutely nothing to do with what this country is going to be run like,” said Bradford. He said he owed no outstanding taxes.
At least three members of Trump’s advisory council have, however, had action taken against them by authorities seeking taxes they owed. In 2004, the US justice department successfully sued Trump adviser Phyllis Hill Slater of New York for $169,000 in income and payroll taxes dating back 12 years.
Slater and her architecture engineering firm have also had warrants and liens filed against them by New York authorities for non-payment of state taxes. It was unclear from filings whether Slater’s outstanding taxes were eventually paid. Slater, 72, did not respond to several requests for comment.
The Trump campaign’s briefing document on the advisory council specified that the group wanted to address rules that mean “one mistake” in handling payroll taxes such as those Slater was accused of not paying “can lead the owner into great legal trouble”.
Irma Aguirre, the owner of a Mexican restaurant in Las Vegas and another of Trump’s advisers, has in recent years been pursued five times for outstanding federal taxes totalling more than $117,000, according to filings in Nevada. Earlier this month Aguirre, 47, hosted Trump for talks with Hispanic business leaders at her restaurant, El Sombrero.
Aguirre said in an email: “This has been an ongoing dispute and I am currently working with the IRS and am confident that it will be eventually be resolved.”
Skyline Exhibits of Central Ohio, a Columbus-based trade show franchise founded and led by Trump adviser Jeanette Armbrust, has 41 separate judgments against it in local courts relating to more than $100,000 in outstanding sales taxes. All the taxes were eventually settled, according to filings. Armbrust, 48, said in an email she was “happy to clarify” but was unavailable to comment.
The Trump campaign document stated clearly that the advisory council was made up of “small business owners from around the country”. Several of the advisers, however, appeared not to actually own small businesses.
Adviser Charlotte Keyt of Florida has recently sold dietary supplements for Juice Plus, a so-called “multilevel marketing” company. Keyt, 75, does not, however, currently have registered with Florida authorities any active business that employs people. Keyt did not respond to a message and calls seeking comment.
Adviser Erica Taylor of Wichita founded two non-profits in the 1990s that were struck off the state register for failing to file accounts, according to filings at the office of the Kansas secretary of state. Taylor was in 2013 reported to be the owner of something called T&C Publications, but no records of the firm actually being incorporated could be found in state filings. Taylor, 46, did not respond to several emails and calls seeking comment.
At the other end of the corporate scale, Anthony Scaramucci of New York is the co-founder and co-owner of SkyBridge Capital, a $12bn hedge fund, which is not a small business.
Another Trump adviser, Joe Salvucci of Pennsylvania, owns and is chairman of Peak Technical Staffing, a large employment agency that brings in annual revenues of about $60m by supplying companies with contract staff. Salvucci, 60, said he bought the business from his father about 30 years ago.
Salvucci and his company have been accused of failing to act on allegations of sexual assault and harassment made by female staff, and even of retaliating against those who made them. He denies this.
In 2013, 27-year-old manager Allison Trathen alleged that her boss in an Illinois branch of Peak Technical subjected her to a campaign of harassment that culminated in him following her into an elevator and assaulting her by rubbing his genitals against her backside while grunting.
Trathen alleged in a federal lawsuit that she emailed Salvucci, the Trump adviser, three times anonymously to say that she was being sexually harassed by her boss, eventually identifying him by name. “I just want my supervisor to stop with the inappropriate texts/emails and to stop trying to touch me inappropriately,” she wrote. She said no investigation was opened.
When she was assaulted by Williams a second time, she said, she took a leave of absence, and Williams was allowed to resign. But even after that, she alleged, one of Salvucci’s senior executives insisted to her that the activity had been a “two-way street” and tried to have her sign a document saying she would comply with company policy on harassment.
In court filings, Peak Technical denied Trathen’s allegations that she had alerted Salvucci, the chief executive who is now a Trump adviser, about her claims of sexual harassment. But the company eventually settled her lawsuit, for an undisclosed amount.
In 2007, office administrator Mary McLaughlin alleged that she was terminated from her job after telling bosses in a Michigan office that she was sexually harassed by a co-worker. The alleged harasser was also terminated from his job.
Peak Technical then advised another company where McLaughlin had applied for a job not to hire her, saying she was “somewhat unstable and defensive”, according to a $300,000 lawsuit McLaughlin brought against the company.
Denying that McLaughlin’s termination was related to the harassment allegations, Peak Technical said in a court filing that it was due to “performance deficiencies”. After McLaughlin named Salvucci’s sister as a witness she planned to call at trial, the case went to mediation. McLaughlin’s attorney said it was “resolved under a confidentiality agreement”.
In 1992, Rebecca Magnuson, a 27-year-old Peak Technical employee in Virginia, alleged that she was constantly sexually harassed by the manager of a Volkswagen dealership to which she was assigned.
The manager repeatedly made lewd comments about Magnuson’s body, she claimed, and asked her three times to leave work with him and check into a hotel, telling her “he could make or break her career”. When she complained, she said, her supervisor at Peak Technical instructed her to “put up with it”.
Magnuson alleged that after she rejected the Volkswagen manager’s persistent sexual advances, he had her removed by Peak Technical. Magnuson reached a settlement with the harasser but had claims for damages against Peak and Volkswagen dismissed by a federal judge, who ruled she was terminated “solely on the basis of performance”.
In an interview, Salvucci said that the cases happened “a long time ago”, adding that Peak Technical was “intolerant” of sexual harassment and always dealt with it swiftly. “We are very tough on this kind of thing,” he said. “We can’t have it.”
Salvucci said his company did not have a particular problem with sexual harassment. “We employ 2,500 people a year,” he said. “You found three cases.”