“It’s easy as hell and fun as f*ck”: Miami’s multiple listings service scandal revisited

The Jills versus Kevin Tomlinson saga got the glossy treatment this week with a sprawling story offering a few new details on the case that centered around accusations of manipulation of the Multiple Listing Service.

As those in South Florida real estate already know, former One Sotheby’s International Realty agent Kevin Tomlinson was sentenced in August to extended probation and banned from the industry for trying to extort Coldwell Banker agents Jill Hertzberg and Jill Eber. Tomlinson had accused the top agents of having manipulated the MLS, trying to make homes on the market more attractive to potential buyers.

Tomlinson told Vanity Fair he plans to appeal the judge’s ban from working in the real estate industry. “I know of a cocaine dealer who got his license back within three months of getting out of prison,” he said.

The story also includes some other choice quotes.

On making it as a real estate agent in Miami, Tomlinson said: “If you are on your game and know your shit, it is easy as hell and fun as fuck.”

Tomlinson and Hertzberg had two different accounts for a meeting they had more than three years ago. Tomlinson, who cited his previously “flirty relationship” with Hertzberg, told Vanity Fair that during a meeting in July 2015, she escorted Tomlinson into her bedroom, where she laid across her bed “on her stomach with her feet in the air.”

Esther Percal, an EWM Realty International agent who has supported Tomlinson, testified that, “I thought the Jills were going to fuck him.”

Hertzberg, meanwhile, told the magazine that while sitting at her desk, Tomlinson threatened to ruin her career and that of her children. “This entire thing, this [Miami Association of Realtors] complaint, everything you did, you did this for money?” she asked him. “This is all about money? He said, ‘Yes, sister.’ Like, ‘You dumb shit.’” [Vanity Fair] – Katherine Kallergis