Judge lets lawsuit against former Granby Ranch ski CEO move ahead

Although vocally skeptical of the allegations, a Denver decide has agreed to permit an aunt of former Granby Ranch ski space CEO Melissa Cipriani to analyze whether or not she used the ski space to fraudulently switch cash and evade the aunt’s $19 million court docket judgment.

“I’m pissed off with this case,” Choose David Goldberg mentioned at a Dec. 17 listening to, “and I do agree that it’s largely, at the very least from my perspective, overblown and can lead to vital value and expense that will not, or mustn’t, be mandatory underneath the circumstances.”

Cipriani’s lawyer has complained that the allegations in opposition to her “learn like a spy novel stuffed with worldwide intrigue,” together with unlawful extraction and smuggling of uncut gems.

Cipriani, 44, is the daughter of Marise Cipriani, an inheritor to Brazilian airline and meatpacking fortunes who purchased the Silver Creek ski space in Grand County for $12 million in 1995 and turned it into the Granby Ranch subdivision. That ski-and-golf resort amassed tens of tens of millions of {dollars} in debt earlier than being offered to an out-of-state developer in 2021. Melissa Cipriani was CEO of Granby Ranch Facilities, which operated the ski and golf areas there.

Amongst these owed cash from the Ciprianis is Valeria Fontana, Marise Cipriani’s sister and Melissa Cipriani’s aunt. In 2013, Fontana agreed to put up the collateral for a $19.3 million financial institution mortgage to her sister. When Cipriani didn’t repay, the financial institution took the collateral and Fontana has been searching for reimbursement since. She received a $19.3 million court docket judgment in 2021.

Then, final yr, Fontana sued her sister and niece, together with almost 30 different folks and firms, accusing them of transferring cash round in a conspiracy to maintain it away from Fontana, together with property that Melissa Cipriani managed at Granby Ranch. The Ciprianis have repeatedly denied doing that and have requested that the case be dismissed.

“They need to present some proof upon which they base the allegations of their grievance,” Melissa Cipriani’s lawyer, Darrell Daley, mentioned of Fontana’s attorneys on the Dec. 17 listening to. “It’s considerably akin to a possible trigger listening to in a legal case: You must present one thing earlier than you possibly can proceed with the case. They should present one thing earlier than they need to be allowed to proceed with discovery. They should present that they’ve some proof.”

Fontana’s lawsuit in opposition to the online of individuals and firms she accuses of defrauding her has moved at a snail’s tempo by way of Denver District Court docket. Fontana’s attorneys say they’re having a tough time monitoring down the defendants, lots of whom are in Brazil, and acquiring financial institution data and different monetary data that can reveal the alleged fraudulent transfers.

“If we had been required to have all the knowledge to rebut a defendant’s claims previous to submitting a case, no discovery could be mandatory in litigation. That’s not how the system works,” Fontana lawyer Klaudia Beutler mentioned on the mid-December listening to. “We needs to be afforded the chance to totally examine the veracity of Ms. Cipriani’s assertions.”

Among the many particulars that Beutler and her shopper count on to analyze is the provenance of a few of Cipriani’s jewellery, “given her household’s historical past with uncut gems,” in Beutler’s phrases. In August 2023, her brother Guilherme Cipriani pleaded responsible to smuggling 67 unfastened diamonds from Brazil to Miami, the place he was arrested on the airport. He was sentenced to probation.