A St. John man who registered a company name affiliated with Donald Trump Jr. said he did it because he wanted to show what happens when municipalities accept what’s presented to them without taking the time to examine it first.
Speaking to the St. John Town Council during its Aug. 28 meeting, Stephen Jarzombek walked the council through the timeline of events that led to Trump Jr.’s July 23 visit in which he deeded water rights to the town.
While Town Manager Bill Manousopoulos said he contacted RBCP, which owns the approximately 167 acres at 12863 State Line Rd. in Cedar Lake that’s just more than two miles from St. John town limits, about possibly drilling for water on the parcel, test wells had already been dug in March and April, and RBCP didn’t own the property until July 2, when a different company quitclaimed the deed to it, he said.
The problem, Jarzombek said, was that RBCP Investments wasn’t registered with the state of Indiana, and that RBCP Investments LLC — which is owned by Benton, Louisiana, healthcare executive Rock Bordelon; Charles Paddock, who has addresses in Louisiana and Covington, Indiana; and Wapiti Ventures 1 LLC, a business that lists Trump Jr.’s Jupiter, Florida address — isn’t in good standing in Louisiana for not filing an annual report, Jarzombek told the council and the Post-Tribune confirmed. As such, it can’t register to do business in Indiana.
So, after paying for a Due and Diligent Search to research RBCP Investments LLC with the state and the Secretary of State’s office coming up with nothing, Jarzombek on Aug. 18 registered the name to himself “for his own use,” he said.
“I thus suggest that the consent to annexation and water rights easement agreement are defective and cannot simply be remedied as I now control that LLC name in perpetuity,” Jarzombek told the council. “Why would experienced investors such as Trump Jr. either fail to provide documentation of the state of formation of their LLC or allow whoever crafted those documents to misrepresent the state of information, then sign the document given the error was clearly stated above the signature line?”
Town Manager Manousopolous said in an email to the Post-Tribune and read at the meeting that, “The developer, who is the registered owner according to County records, consented to the annexation of the subject property, and granted the water easement.” He also said the town “had no knowledge of the test wells prior to being approached for annexation,” but that the town can annex the parcel “if it provides a service to the Town.”
“In the case of the subject property, it will be for additional well sites for the Town,” Manousopolous said. “The Town is securing water sites for the future as it has done in the past. Just recently, this administration has moved to bring wells 8 and 9 online for water production that were drilled around 2017. This is nothing new — just proactive thinking for the future of St John.”
An Indiana Department of Environmental Management document Jarzombek provided to the Post-Tribune, however, shows another company listing a phone number registered to former St. John Town Manager Steve Kil, who now works for Lotton, as the contact who ordered the drilling in March.
Some residents, like Rose Kleine of Cedar Lake, are concerned that the developers are planning a bait-and-switch tactic to acquire the land for a data center. Kleine, who said her family farms land that connects to the east side of the parcel, wouldn’t put it past Lotton to do so.
“(Lotton) first went after us to buy lots of houses in 2022, so we went to (Lake) County and remonstrated. (A Cedar Lake attorney) presented a letter that Cedar Lake was going to provide water, but there was no adjoining land, so they would have to go to private property to get it,” Kleine said. “We knew (Lotton) drilled the wells (in March), and four wells is overkill for homes. And I farm over there; what’s he going to do to our water table? We have no roads over there, either.
“We knew he was going to come back at us, so I guess we’re going to have to get a lawyer.”
Jarzombek said that he understands RBCP can easily fix the paperwork mistake, though Lotton’s economic and public affairs director and former Cedar Lake Town Manager Chris Salatas didn’t return a call to the Post-Tribune to indicate whether that’s the case.
That’s not the point for Jarzombeck.
“My primary goal was to show how easily and quickly an LLC could be established here to do business legally,” Jarzombek said. “My second goal was to show that haste makes waste. In the haste to support a politically motivated dog-and-pony show that wasted taxpayer resources on a Secret Service motorcade, deployment of the regional SWAT, county explosives unit and involvement of numerous local police departments, a Water Rights and Easement Agreement was crafted that referenced a legal entity that did not exist, and now cannot exist as I control that name in perpetuity.”
Additionally, statements by town officials after Trump Jr.’s St. John visit don’t all agree as to the location of the parcel, or when it would be developed, and make it appear that the Trump Jr. LLC would be “investing” in the town when the agreements, of which the Post-Tribune confirmed from documents Jarzombek provided, show the town would be responsible for completing wells, a treatment facility, and a water tower on the noncontiguous parcel.
“My friends and I have yet to get to the bottom of this matter, but we will keep digging. Those of us who have lived in St. John from the time of the Ice Arena fiasco do not want the town to spend its resources on a years-long legal battle over an agreement that has been characterized as a gift to the town that, in the end, could prove to be costly,” Jarzombek said.
Planning Commission Director Ned Kovachevich, in a letter sent to Covington-based RBCP Investments dated Aug. 18 that the Post-Tribune obtained, ordered the entity to “cease and desist any activity related to the development of the property.”
The stop-order is for “illegal activity” at a parcel of land on or about 12863 State Line Road in Cedar Lake, the Post-Tribune previously reported.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
