Sometime in 1950, Fred Trump completes the Beach Haven apartment complexes with $16 million in Federal Housing Administration (FHA) funds. From the FHA aid for Beach Haven and Shore Haven, Trump and his business partner schemed the government out of at least $3.5 million that went into their own pockets.
When he got the green light for another development — Beach Haven, a forty-acre, twenty-three-building complex in Coney Island that would net him $16 million in FHA funding — it was clear that his strategy of building on the taxpayer’s dime was a winner.
Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough
His partner on Beach Haven is William “Willie” Tomasello, whose mob ties include earlier real estate projects with members of the Gambino and Genovese crime families in New York and Florida.
Before building the apartments, Trump bought the land and gave it to a trust. He made his five kids, including three-year-old Donald Trump, beneficiaries of that trust. Since Beach Haven is built on the land, the building has to pay a ground lease to the trust, i.e. the Trump kids. Fred arranged a 99-year lease in which the Beach Haven building has to pay his kids $60,600 every year.
In effect, he made his children into landlords… The maneuver created a steady stream of income for the Trump children for their entire lives. Fred Trump later set up similar ground leases at the nearby Shore Haven apartments. The lease continued until the properties were sold 55 years later, paying Donald Trump the equivalent today of more than $4.8 million.
The New York Ties (Video)
Beach Haven becomes home to numerous Russian and Ukrainian immigrants.
Note: The publicly available information on James and Willie Tomasello confirm their mob ties, but Trump File is not 100% confident in the elder Tomasello’s relationship with Fred Trump. The relationship between Fred and Willie is better documented.
UPDATED 2/3/2025: A previous version of this post claimed based on our sources (linked below) that Fred Trump had previously worked with Vincent “James” Tomasello, the father of Willie Tomasello. A family member reached out to Trump File to clarify that James died in 1937 and had no connection to the Trump family.
All of the informatin about William Vincent Tomasello is factual, but as for grandpa he did brick and stone work for the Diocese of Brooklyn under the company name James Vincent Tomasello Mason Contractors (JVT). He started the business about 1910 with his three brothers. They also made their money building and selling small apartment buildings on Kings highway and Ocean Parkway. Look up the Deeds of Record in the Brooklyn archives.
Vincent James (Tomasello) Abramo in an email to Trump File
External Sources
Global Security.org (Archived)
London Review of Books (Archived)
Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump, PH.D., page 35
Photograph: The New York Times
