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By STEVE MOCARSKY [email protected]
Sunday, January 19, 2003     Page: 9A

NORTH UNION TWP. – After 40 years of laying carpet in New York, Richard
Pedersen was ready for a more bucolic life in Northeastern Pennsylvania as
retirement approached.
   
What laid in store for him was anything but relaxing.
    Pedersen’s dream of moving to the Pocono region began in 1974, when at age
36, he bought land in Marshalls Creek. Pocono Ranch Lands was a private
community in which he envisioned spending his golden years with his wife,
Patricia.
   
But through the 1980s, the region developed and his family’s weekend trips
to Pennsylvania became plagued by traffic congestion.
   
In 1988, Pedersen thought he found a better choice for his retirement in a
new 4,000-acre resort and private living community near Hazleton – Valley of
the Lakes off state Route 940 in Hazle, East Union and North Union townships.
   
The developer at the time – Frank Cedrone – tempted Pedersen with promises
of a view of a man-made lake, privileges to a golf course to be designed and
managed by Arnold Palmer, and other amenities, Pedersen said.
   
But like thousands of others in a 1996 class action lawsuit against
Cedrone, a management company and PNC Bank, Pedersen said he endured years of
unfulfilled promises and civil rights violations under the former managers of
the resort, now called Eagle Rock.
   
Civil rights violations alleged in the lawsuit include not allowing lot
owners to erect for-sale signs on their lots, allowing them to use only
certain contractors to build their homes and not allowing state police into
the development to respond to lot owners’ calls.
   
A judge decertified the class in 1997, which means only the 16 people who
filed the lawsuit could remain as plaintiffs instead of the more than 1,000
people the suit claims were harmed.
   
The judge also released from the lawsuit PNC Bank, who the suit accused of
racketeering by siphoning off millions of dollars from Cedrone’s bankruptcy
estate.
   
Pedersen said he hopes that Roger Antao, the lot owners’ New Jersey lawyer,
is successful in an appeal he filed earlier this month with the U.S. Court of
Appeals to recertify the class and have PNC renamed as a defendant.
   
A PNC official declined comment on the appeal.
   
Pedersen said that after buying a lake-view lot for $24,000, he learned
that he would be required to use one of six “preferred builders” Cedrone
recommended if he wanted to build a house.
   
Cedrone’s builders quoted Pedersen a price of about $98,000, plus he would
have to pay what he says was an illegal 8-percent construction fee to the
community.
   
Pedersen found a Wilkes-Barre contractor to build the home for $70,000, but
he said Cedrone wouldn’t allow an outside contractor to build it.
   
Pedersen bought a development townhouse – his current home – for $70,000.
He said community officials assured him they could easily sell the lake-view
property, but did not.
   
Pedersen said he stopped making payments on the property on his attorney’s
advice after Cedrone filed for bankruptcy in 1992. But after the new owners of
the resort – Eagle Rock Co. – acquired the resort in 1996, the company
foreclosed on the property.
   
Pedersen said he recently lost a court case appealing the foreclosure.
   
“I already paid, with interest, around $20,000. They wanted me to pay
another $10,000 to clear it up. But they’re selling the properties in that
same area for about $13,000,” Pedersen said. “If the case is won, that
property should be free and clear to me.”
   
In addition to losing his land, Pedersen said he had to put up with years
of unpaved roads that were rarely plowed in the winter while being charged
hundreds of dollars in maintenance fees.
   
Pedersen said he was glad when Eagle Rock bought the property in 1996, but
soon became dismayed when the half-mile stretch of road in front of his
townhouse saw no improvements until 2001. Work on roads around other tenants’
homes and the golf course were improved starting in 1997.
   
“I was told the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,”
Pedersen said.
   
Eagle Rock also tried to charge him maintenance fees for several years
before it took over the resort, Pedersen said.
   
Jeff Schmidt, vice president and general legal counsel for Eagle Rock, said
Eagle Rock was aware of the problems lot owners had under Cedrone and MLA, a
management company that ran the resort after Cedrone filed for bankruptcy.
Schmidt declined to comment on why Eagle Rock tried to collect maintenance
fees from those years.
   
Pedersen said he’s glad he might have a chance to receive reparations for
the years he lived under the Valley of the Lakes management. He only recently
learned of the lawsuit when an article appeared in the Times Leader saying the
January trial date for the lawsuit against Cedrone was postponed to March 3.
   
Antao, the lot owners’ attorney, said Pedersen was named in the
class-action lawsuit, but his notification was probably mailed to an incorrect
address.
   
Pedersen was dismayed to learn that a judge decertified the class, but said
he hopes the appeal is successful and he recoups the money he lost on his lot
foreclosure.
   

   
Antao said if a judge recertifies the class but doesn’t add PNC as a
defendant, class members still have a shot to see reparations from PNC because
PNC remains a defendant to a cross claim filed by MLA.
   
Patricia Pedersen said she’s tired of the ordeal “hanging over our
heads.” Her husband said she would move if they could.
   
But Richard Pedersen said he still loves Pennsylvania, despite all the
problems.
   
“He really, truly loves it up here,” Patricia Pedersen said with a New
York accent. “He’s a true Pennsylvanian.”
   
Steve Mocarsky, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 459-2005.