For years, the name Eddie San Roman has been synonymous with lack of payment. Whether it be the nearly one million dollar fraud committed by Assero or the most recent iteration as 24 Asset Management (24AM), the reality has been a loose-loose proposition when it comes to Labor. Foreclosurepedia made no bones when it advised Housing and Urban Development (HUD) about the concerns we had with 24AM’s M&M FSM Award. Early on, their ability to pay was already an issue and when it came to debris removal from hurricanes Helene and Milton, the proverbial financial hole in the floor opened up even more. Last year, one minority contractor had enough. For months, they had struggled to make ends meet being denied monies owed while San Roman and the 24AM Team lived high on the hog. Fast Eddie appeared to believe that the same million dollar fraud at Assero would be tolerated under the HUD M&M FSM.
Look, I get it that Scott Turner, the newly minted Secretary of HUD, is more concerned with parking space allocations than he is with minority contractors being paid on his watch. What I do not get is whom will HUD fill the trenches with to handle the uptick in volume, later this year, when Labor realizes they will never be paid for the work they perform?
As we will release in the Foreclosurepedia Industry Insider this weekend, the problems rose as high as Atlanta OCPO Director, Sharon Washington. What should have been a simple audit and demand for payment simply extended the interest free holding of Labor’s money without explanation. Moreover, though, any HUD Awardee whom is saying that the check is in the mail which becomes lost and then — not one, not two, not three, but FOUR demands later — has to FedEx a check that still never arrives, well that might be a problem. The real irony here is that the very people appointed to oversee the Awardees either willingly or by abject failure was incapable of administering their duties.
Here is a snapshot of previous Assero debt and how Fast Eddie San Roman and his Team determined when to pay. The pattern and practice of Fast Eddie was never to pay according to contract, but pay when Labor screamed enough.
Months after submitting the minority contractor for payment to both HUD and after dozens of requests for payment, Foreclosurepedia penned the below,
From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of all Labor and the IAFST, I want to apologize to you that both HUD and HUD’s protected M&M FSM Awardee, 24 Asset Management, are operating with impunity when it comes to avoiding their contractual commitments. I had attempted to remain out of the fray as I was hopeful that the system might work. I remained cautiously optimistic that even though the track record of 24 Asset Management has been strewn with the wreckage of unpaid Contractors, surely the Atlanta OCPO Director, Sharon Washington, would engage within the process and order Mr San Roman to make good on federal contract debt obligations. I see that I was wrong.
I want to belabor this missive, for a moment. Circular promises of checks that are lost or eaten by the dog in youthful parlance that are resent via FedEx and yet still never arrive is unconscionable. In fact, these statements have the capability to be proven or disproven. In this I mean when you make a statement cognizable under a federally procured contract that payment has been transmitted when it may have not, that would strike me as perjury. And should multiple people gather together, using electronic means such as email, to further the potential artifice and/or scheme to perpetrate a fraud, well I believe we all know where that road would take us. The tragic thing is that this is a pattern and practice harkening back to the nearly one million dollar fraud perpetrated by Assero which was under the management of Mr San Roman and Mr Lee Mertins. HUD was well aware of this. It is winding up to be yet another National Field Network involuntary bankruptcy. I am ultimately more concerned with the fact that when 24AM is paid by the US government — HUD in this case — they affirm that they have paid those performing services. Moreover, though, when we speak of the preemptive debris removal associated with the previous year’s catastrophic hurricanes, the very same damages that President Trump had committed to addressing, and by proxy HUD Secretary Scott Turner, it becomes even more horrific.
While I do not have the power of the purse, I do have the power of the pen. The time is long overdue for HUD to remove 24 Asset Management and in my humble opinion to ensure that this minority contractor is paid, in full, prior to that dismissal. I believe in the cleansing effects of sunlight upon the dark shadows of the M&M contract including upon those whom attempt to obfuscate and shirk their duties. While I type this in the capacity as a journalist, I am far more offended that as a US citizen, my tax dollars are allowed to be pocketed by a regime in Florida and that the fraud perpetrated is protected at such high levels.
This is yet another reason why the wisdom of President Trump in appointing folks to DOGE is so prescient. The levels of fraud, waste, and abuse in the instant case is blinding in its conveyance. It is tragic, in the sense that a minority contractor actually believed they would ever be paid by 24AM, a HUD Awardee. The irony is thick, in my opinion. I think that both 24AM and Ms Washington understand precisely what I imply. Foreclosurepedia and the International Association of Field Service Technicians stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Labor in this cause. Should any party like to opine, prior to publication, feel free to drop me a line here or via separate email.
Thank you.
While Ms Washington was not moved by the email, other senior HUD officials were as we will discuss in this weekend’s Foreclosurepedia Industry Insider. The payoffs, the rip offs, and the things no one saw will be brought out into the open to ensure that Labor completely understands why neither 24 Asset Management nor their minders at HUD are to be trusted. And in fairness, it is not simply 24AM. Problems abound at Spectrum. Here is a quote dealing with them,
These are all pass through jobs (gtr-wons) that i keep getting the run around on getting paid. Took them till end of January to tell me they finally submitted them for approval from HUD and cannot get a straight answer from SSA on the status. We have 4 more pass throughs to complete that I have told them we will not be completing until we receive payment for these outstanding invoices. Monthly payments for routine inspections and grass cuts(if they even give them to us unless I beg) along with HIPRs and initials have typically been paid within the contract time frame minus last month it was 3 days late (that is forgivable to a point). Thank you Paul.
HUD is aware of the issues there and Ms Washington apparently believes that Spectrum Solutions Acquisition’s (SSA) failure to pay is no big issue. I submit that Ms Washington, along with 24AM and SSA are the problem. When you combine this with the problems ongoing with countless extensions to sell HUD assets on the M&M AM side, which HUD is painfully aware of; when HUD says that $100,000 of profit for paid, personal training for a M&M AM Awardee, the solution becomes painfully clear as Cathy Baker is well aware of. Perhaps this is a case for DOGE, I don’t know. What I do know is that when we release all of the emails and asset information in our article this weekend, the real questions will begin to be asked.
