The jig is up for Lee Mertins and Eduardo San Roman, the operator of Assero and 24 Asset Management respectively. The reality, though, is that San Roman’s concerns are far more serious as a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Awardee with his hands still stuck in the non paying cookie jar of Assero. Assero Services has grown out of the field services division of 24 Asset Management, according to their LinkedIn page, but the fact of the matter is when people need to get paid, they still have to reach out to San Roman when Lee and the Boyz have blown the cash. And whether or not Ray Agliata, Brad Lucy, or Lee and his former AMS tight pal Brian Christy can keep the herd at bay by not paying them, the reality is that Fannie Mae has decided to take a deeper dive on Mertins’ unorthodox way of tending to their assets. And it is not like the US government didn’t know they were getting it deep from the limp wrist. Here is how Mertins ran it at AMS when they held the HUD M&M FSM,
There is a common Industry Technique referred to by many names such as Screen Shotting, Desk Topping or Mirroring. It was addressed during the Innotion days by the HUD Office of the Inspector General. We addressed it with AMS and pointed out how Mertins hired temp workers to do it instead of doing the work. Screen Shotting is where you take a photo and then use a software tool to crop it. So, what a person does is crop the photo wherein the Date/Time Stamp is removed and you have the photo you want sans the stamp so that you may enter in your own. If the perpetrator is smart, they also change the EXiF Data which is embedded on the photo, to match the Date/Time Stamp. Most are not.
And let’s not bullshit around. Lee and Eddie have been making the rounds for years. Here was an email I received from a Senior AMS employee, back in February of 2015, when Lee and Eddie were pilfering from the shop that MCS had bought in their failed run to stay afloat,
It was suggested by someone that a “client alert” should be posted that relates to data gathered by Assero being stored in a stolen management system that could be shut down at any time through court ordered injunction if followed through by the owners of the proprietary system that cost millions to develop and was spun up under Assero very quickly and I am sure without proper authority. Eddie may have even paid Lee for the system which was not his right to sell. In any event, this data could be locked down if the proprietary owners ever decide to follow through with investigation and deposing the players under oath.
Rumors are that Lee has been advised from his Fannie cronies, off the record, that Assero will be winning Fannie Mae contracts over several if not many states and his confidants have leaked this out prematurely as this info should not be public knowledge. It appears his abuse of AMS expense accounts and the wining and dining (to say the least) of Fannie Mae executives is still paying off coupled with San Roman opening his pockets to fill his bank account while funding the escapades of Lee and Fannie execs.
Pretty amazing that Fannie Mae would give him an award after he “cooked the books” on the work completed while shutting down cleanings and routines every winter on 50% of the inventory to save money while reporting the work to be done and subsequently receive payment even on snow removals where he routinely held back half the snow orders to avoid paying vendors for performing the work that was within their scope to complete and bill for. Brokers routinely reported their assets not being serviced for months at a time, but Fannie Mae never responded to their please for help. All this while extorting funds from vendors through manipulation of the vendor scores in the very system that was eventually stolen from AMS/MCS and is now being used by Assero.
The problem with fraud is that when the marks leave, you are left with a lot of vig. Vigorish (also known as juice, under-juice, the cut, the take, the margin, the house edge or simply the vig) is the fee charged by a bookmaker (or bookie) for accepting a gambler’s wager. And gamble did Mertins and San Roman do! They gambled that Labor would continue to bow down and perform the unspeakable Mertins party favorites. Apparently, though, that time has drawn nigh. And with Fannie Mae making it quite public that they are shopping Assero’s play, the time to pay the Devil has come.
We release the entire debt list of Assero later this week and it is mind boggling. We will include the company’s owed money because it is finally time to call out Labor whom keeps Assero afloat.
