By the time Elma Lewis Partners was given tentative designation over Parcel P-3, the largest swath of vacant land in Roxbury, real estate developer Thomas Welch and attorney Dennis Tourse had already put 10 years into the project.
Tourse and Welch say Feldman signed contracts with them promising the pay while they continued to work on the project but had no intention of paying them until he received financing for the project.
“Welch and Tourse made clear in the negotiations that they had forgone any equity in the project to allow a developer like Feldman to partner with ELP, but they and the National Center did so with the understanding and expectation that Welch and Tourse would be paid for their work,” the complaint reads.
Yet, according to the complaint, Feldman “deliberately and intentionally misrepresented his intention and that of P-3 Partners, falsely led Welch and Tourse to believe that they would be paid by specific dates without any preconditions and fraudulently induced them to enter into the consultant agreements on that basis.”
But during a meeting May 1 of 2014, Feldman threw the April 28 letter sent by Tourse on the table and “stated he never expected or intended to pay Welch and Tourse until P-3 Partners obtained a construction loan,” according to the complaint.
