TEXAS
HoustonPress
BY MEAGAN FLYNN
FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2016
Spring-based developer Robert Pinard had thought he was being charitable when he agreed to purchase some land from Northwoods Catholic School.
The school claimed it was struggling financially and needed to unload some assets to get out of the hole, says Pinard’s attorney, Cris Feldman. Pinard’s daughter attended the school, and he had made donations to the school in the past. So when a priest who was an administrator at the school approached him about buying 1.4 acres of their land, Pinard agreed to buy it for $2.5 million, according to Feldman; he planned to build a strip mall that included a medical supplies facility.
But nothing was ever built, even though Pinard had already begun clearing the land and surveying it. And now, he’s suing Northwoods Educational Foundation and the priest he had been negotiating with all along, Father Daniel Massick, claiming that, on top of never paying him for the work he did, Massick tried to extort him out of $94,000 by threatening his daughter.
According to the lawsuit, just as they were finalizing paperwork for the sale, Massick dropped Pinard entirely after Pinard refused to fork over an additional $94,000 donation to the school. In a text message, Massick said he couldn’t finalize the paperwork until Pinard paid up, but Pinard objected, saying it was never part of the deal. In a phone call that followed, according to the lawsuit, Massick told him, “I hope nothing happens to your daughter.”
“My client attempted to help the church, and instead, he was subject to a shakedown,” Feldman said.
But according to the counter claims the Catholic school filed against Pinard, they were the victims in this—and Pinard was nothing but a savvy real estate developer who is trying to dupe the church into falling for a “land-grab scheme.” In fact, lawyers for the school allege, Pinard was the one making threats.
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