Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just that these things run in cycles. Whatever the cause, it seems that the grifters who think RV parks are an easy con are suddenly circling closer to the flame. With any luck, they’ll self-immolate before causing too much damage.
One of my favorite flimflam artists, if only because of the scale on which he operates, is Ricky Trinidad, who for nearly two years has been casting his spell over the destitute town of New Castle, PA. After making a hash of things in Florida, where to lose your shirt in real estate suggests you might be dumber than a manatee, Trinidad apparently decided he would have an easier time of it in an area where hustlers aren’t tripping all over each other. And New Castle, desperate for any investment that might lift its moribund economy, was only too eager to roll over and have its belly scratched.
Thus began the age-old dance between seducer and seduced, a string of extravagant promises made easier to swallow because of Trinidad’s evangelical fervor—indeed, as he explained to the local press, he’d moved to New Castle after learning that it’s the home of Jubilee Ministries International. Tellingly, Jubilee asserts that its vision “is to come together as a militant, spiritual army that is arising and keeping rank so that we may take dominion and possess the land,” an aspiration that Trinidad apparently took to heart. Jubilee’s various enterprises are named “Royal” this and “Kingdom” that, and that too is a practice that Trinidad quickly emulated.
First on his list: “Royalty Camping,” touted last year as a luxury RV park that would draw tourists from all across the country, thereby turbocharging the local economy. Indeed, Royalty Camping was envisioned as merely the first in a series of campgrounds in half-a-dozen states, all offering “white-glove service” that would “change the RV industry.” Best of all, Royalty Camping would operate year-round because the 30-acre property would include a massive air dome spanning its RV sites, accessed through air locks and soaring so high that campers could have fires and outdoor barbecues and all that other camping stuff even in the dead of winter.
Apparently, no one blinked.
Thus unchallenged, Trinidad went on to extol two housing developments he was planning, “Kingdom Place” and “Royalty Place,” which would add more than 200 new homes to the area—most of which, he said last summer, would be built and sold by December 2023, thanks to an innovative modular construction technology he would be using. And then, at the end of this past February, even as he clearly had blown past his subdivision projections and was still just scraping roadways, Trinidad unveiled the crown jewel of his ambitions: “Preeminence,” a $52 million, five-story, mixed-use cluster of buildings in the heart of downtown New Castle, with retail, commercial and office space on the ground floors, topped by four floors of 200 “deluxe” apartments, a gym and a rooftop garden.
There was just one teeny problem: Trinidad doesn’t actually own the land where he wants to build Preeminence—the city does. And rather than attempt to buy the land, Trinidad wants New Castle to go into business with him in a so-called public-private collaboration that he insists is the next big thing in urban development. The result will be “transformational,” he has gushed, providing a housing magnet for middle-class families to move into the heart of the city, reversing an 80-year exodus that has more than halved the city’s population and catalyzing a resurgence in downtown property values. As to where all those new residents will find middle-income jobs in an area afflicted with a 26% poverty rate and average household income of just above $50,000, that’s something Trinidad has yet to explain.
But boy, does he talk up a storm otherwise.
After initially welcoming the effusive Trinidad as a possible economic savior, at least some local residents and politicians are starting to have their doubts—not least because of that whole public-private collaboration thing. If past is prologue, Trinidad’s history in Florida is hardly reassuring: by the time he ended up in Chapter 7 liquidation in 2022, Trinidad was at least $87 million in debt and juggling more than a dozen projects in the Miami-Dade area, plus a couple more in Illinois—a track record of lots of starts, few finishes and a host of stiffed creditors. Where would that leave New Castle if history repeated itself?
Indeed, Kingdom Place and Royalty Place, which Trinidad had projected would be completely finished by this summer, still have little to show other than a lot of raw dirt. Royalty Camping, meanwhile, has ditched the whole dome concept, erased any mention of a nationwide chain of RV parks, and so completely butchered its web site that it confuses project managers Gary Johnson and Gary Cox. The luxury campground’s latest design, meanwhile, is dominated by a new proposal for a 40,000-square-foot marketplace, while an announced signature “two-mile heated lazy river” is, if the site’s architectural drawings can be believed, just a figure-eight swimming pool no more than 35 yards long.
As a sure sign that the masterminds behind this campground “design” have no idea what they’re doing, not a single back-in or pull-through site is angled to the road. Nor, according to the local planning commission, is there an adequate number of parking spaces to serve the vaguely defined “marketplace”—but not to worry. “This campground should not be looked at like a KOA,” Trinidad assured a reporter from the local New Castle News. “This is a regional tourism attraction.”
Actually, it’s nothing of the sort. Really—there’s nothing there. Other than a lot of bluster, that is, as with so much of what Trinidad touches. But that seems only to have convinced him that he needs to double down, as he also told the News last month that he’s “tired” of county residents bringing up his past financial history and the Florida bankruptcy. “I’m done trying to defend myself. I’m fine with people trashing me,” he magnanimously declared. “Anybody who does something great gets criticized. They can keep criticizing me. I don’t care about that,” he added, as he reeled off the company of criticized greats among whom he finds himself: Jesus Christ, Christopher Columbus, Elon Musk, Donald Trump.
Yes, Ricky Trinidad operates at a scale most other hustlers can only dream about. But his sights are set even higher.
Next post: while an affable Ricky Trinidad is busy selling snake oil, his far cruder counterpart in Arkansas and Missouri stands accused of wire fraud, theft and document forgery.
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