Sour grapes: Former NYC developer sentenced for fraud in New Zealand

Colin Rath doesn’t sell himself short when he’s talking about himself.

In his own words, the former New York City developer says he’s “a successful entrepreneur, Manhattan real estate developer, and author” on a website that promotes his self-published book, “It Is What it Is: A True Manhattan Real Estate Nightmare with a Silver Lining.” 

He can add convicted New Zealand criminal to that resume now that he’s been slapped with a 43-month sentence for document forgery and tax fraud related to his winery in that country, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Rath sailed to New Zealand in a luxury yacht in 2016 and obtained an entrepreneur residency visa. In 2018, through his company Waipara Winds Limited, he bought a 70-acre Canterbury vineyard with a restaurant, and set up a separate company that he named “New York Grape Escape,” the outlet reported.

Rath filed tax returns for the two companies from 2017 to 2021, claiming roughly $900,000 in refunds — of which he received $780,000 — that he later told investigators he was going to use to reinvest in the vineyard through building a bed and breakfast, among other things.

In his 2021 tax return, Rath said he was spending about $900,000 on a spec house, subdivisions and a bed and breakfast. When officials visited the property, Rath showed them a house he said he built, as well as plans for the subdivision.

Investigators found the house was owned by someone else, unrelated to Rath’s companies, the outlet said. 

All told, Rath, through his two companies, filed 39 false tax returns along with 85 forged supporting documents, the outlet reported. He also filed 13 forged Inland Revenue documents in support of his entrepreneur residency visa with New Zealand’s immigration department, according to the New Zealand Herald. 

Rath was subsequently charged with and pleaded guilty to two counts of using forged documents and 39 counts of dishonesty using a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage, 1New said.

Prior to his New Zealand excursion, Rath wrote of his time as a New York real estate developer in an incendiary memoir that The Real Deal described in 2015 as “less an educational tale than an airing of grievances.” Rath wrote of his and his wife Pamela Harvey-Rath’s trials and tribulations in purchasing and redeveloping 123 West 15th Street, which ultimately led to a family intervention, a foreclosure and multiple lawsuits. 

— Ted Glanzer