Two notorious Queens developers — banned for life from selling condos and co-ops in New York — are going to have to cough up at least $5 million or go to jail after being busted for brazenly defying the order, The Post has learned.
Tommy Huang — a convicted felon once known as the “Asian Donald Trump” — and his wife, Alice Liu, heiress to Taiwan’s Bull Head Barbecue Sauce fortune, will be in Queens Criminal Court today on charges they were still in operation.
Tommy Huang (l. ) and Alice Liu (Ellis Kaplan)
The state Attorney General’s Office said it expects them to plead guilty.
“We hope for a disposition where they will pay back $3.5 million for the earnings they made and $1.5 million in penalties,” said Assistant AG Thomas Schellhammer.
“If they can’t pay back the money, they could get from one to four years in prison.”
From 2008 to 2012, the couple raked in millions marketing and selling units to more than 27 buyers at the Broadway Towers Condominiums in Elmhurst, according to a felony complaint.
The units started at about $300,000 and one sold for $938,000 in 2012, property records show.
Tommy, 59, and Alice, 60, weren’t even supposed to be in business.
In 1999 they were banned by the AG’s Office from marketing and selling condos in New York after missing $325,000 in payments on two Flushing condo developments and letting a property slip into “dire financial straits,” according to court papers.
But in 2008, their son Harry, 35, — bankrolled by his parents — set up the eight-story Elmhurst condo building project. He secretly let his mom and dad market and sell it, the AG’s complaint alleges.
Harry Huang has not been criminally charged, but may be slapped with a lifetime securities ban, according to Schellhammer.
Tommy Huang’s lawyer, Marvyn Kornberg, said the charges are trumped up and that the couple didn’t hide behind their son.
“The charges are vastly overrated, and nobody lost any money,” Kornberg blasted. “My client is accused of signing a contract as a vice president, that is all.”
Tommy Huang pleaded guilty in 1999 to two felony counts after allowing more than 200 gallons of oil to spill in the landmark RKO Keith’s Theater after he bought it — and then lying about the seepage to officials.