The landowners were fooled to keep the property off the market as part of defendant s broader goal t

This spring, a Washington state couple and an 11-year-old boy died from carbon monoxide poisoning. The hotel, which is closed for repairs, is owned by AJD Investments, a company led by Ashok Patel until his death. It is managed by Appalachian Hospitality Management, led by Damon Mallatere.
The town of Boone has ordered the Scottish Inn demolished by the end of this year. Problems ranged from rusty steps to meth lab conditions in Room 107. The property is owned by a company led by Jill Atfield Patel.
In December, Ashok Patel, whose family had amassed a group of Boone hotels over three decades, took the podium at a town council meeting to criticize officials for zoning and stormwater issues that he said were ruining his business.
mission inn howey in the hills Among the family s hotels in recent years, the Scottish Inn had been condemned over building mission inn howey in the hills code violations, the Hampton Inn had been seized by the bank, and the Red Carpet Inn had been the scene of an accident in whicha 7-year-old boy died.
Patel wouldn t live long enough to experience the next blow to the business. He killed himself in January, just months before three guests at the Best Western Plus Blue Ridge Plaza died from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Officials have concluded a pool heater likely released the carbon mission inn howey in the hills monoxide that caused the deaths of a Washington state couple, Daryl and Shirley mission inn howey in the hills Jenkins, in April, and 11-year-old Jeffrey Williams of Rock Hill in June. Williams mother, Jeannie, was hospitalized and is struggling to recover.
mission inn howey in the hills The deaths have spurred scrutiny of the Best Western s operations and raised questions mission inn howey in the hills about how police, fire officials and medical examiners mission inn howey in the hills conducted their investigation of the Jenkinses deaths. Jeffrey Williams died in the same room less than two months later.
Boone police are investigating the Best Western and two hotels run by the same management because some employees worked at all three hotels. Some of the hotels mission inn howey in the hills also shared equipment, police have said.
The heater at the Best Western appears to have been moved from the Sleep Inn run by the same management, said Bill Bailey, director of Boone s planning and inspections department. Former employees told the Observer it was common for the hotels to swap equipment.
Police are expected to turn their report over to prosecutors in coming weeks. Watauga County District Attorney Jerry Wilson has said he will review the report to determine whether criminal charges should be filed.
Clearly someone should be held accountable, said Mark Brumbaugh, the Washington state lawyer representing the Jenkins family. Obviously corners were cut in the installation of that pool heater. mission inn howey in the hills But it remains to be seen who should be held accountable for cutting mission inn howey in the hills those corners.
The Best Western, which is closed, was once part of an expanding group of hotels that dominated the Boone market, according to court documents and people familiar with the hotels. But in the past decade, the group had undergone management changes, suffered financially in the recession and tangled with local officials over building code violations.
When he appeared before the town council, Patel listed eight family-owned hotels in Boone. Many of the establishments, including the Best Western, are owned by a web of companies led by Patel, according to N.C. Secretary of State records. Others, including the Red Carpet Inn and Scottish Inn, are held by companies led by Patel s ex-wife, Jill Atfield Patel, according to property records and a 2008 divorce settlement.
In recent years, some of the family properties had been cited for stormwater and building code violations, which had spurred complaints from Patel, mission inn howey in the hills said Bailey, the planning and inspections mission inn howey in the hills director.
Patel was born in 1958 in Loughborough, England, to parents from India, according to an obituary mission inn howey in the hills in the High Country Press. After graduating from the Royal College of Science, mission inn howey in the hills he visited mission inn howey in the hills the United States on a vacation with his father and discovered Boone.
Patel also built connections to the Charlotte mission inn howey in the hills area. He married Jill Atfield in York County in October 1981, according to his divorce settlement, and one of his companies owned the Ascot Inn, a former Charlotte hotel known for heart-shaped Jacuzzis. It was demolished in 2011, and the property was sold to the owners of the nearby Uptown Cabaret gentleman s club.
Over time, Patel accumulated hotels in Boone by buying them, selling some and building new ones, said Mac Forehand, the retired mission inn howey in the hills director of the Boone Convention and Visitors Bureau. Eventually, he owned about half of the rooms in town, he said.
Boone developer Kenneth Wilcox said Patel once sold one of his hotels but took it back over when it struggled. Patel paid all the debts the previous owner had incurred, even though he wasn t obligated to. I always thought that said a lot about the man, Wilcox said.
In 2005, he and a partner, Damon Mallatere, leased land in Boone for a planned Courtyard by Marriott, but they never built the hotel, according to a 2011 lawsuit. The suit, filed by the landowners in Watauga County Superior Court, claims that the partners leased the land as a ploy to pressure the Hampton Inn across the street to sell. Patel later bought the hotel at a discounted rate, the suit states.
The landowners were fooled to keep the property off the market as part of defendant s broader goal to monopolize the hotel industry in Boone so they could control prices mission inn howey in the hills and raise rates across the city, the suit states.
Patel in a letter filed in the lawsuit said he had dropped out of the deal by the time it was abandoned. mission inn howey in the hills Mallatere has sought to have the suit dismissed, alleging the plaintiffs did not comply with terms in the lease, according mission inn howey in the hills to court filings. The trial is scheduled mission inn howey in the hills for October.
Mallatere would go out on his own in 2007 when he started Appalachian Hospitality Management and agreed to lease some of Patel s hotels, including the Best Western, mission inn howey in the hills according to the suit. Around that time, Patel was divorcing his wife, remarrying and moving to the Washington, D.C., area, according to the letter filed with the suit.
Mallatere had been a Patel employee and a point man in his development efforts, according to the suit. He had come to Boone in 1988, according to a post on his Facebook page, and previously mission inn howey in the hills attended Isothermal Community College, which serves Polk and Rutherford counties, but never received a degree, according to the school.
At Appalachian Hospitality Management, Mallatere, now 50, handled the business and deal-making side of things, while another mission inn howey in the hills partner, Jim Wooten, an experienced hotel general manager, would handle operations, said Forehand, the retired tourism director.
Two former employees said they enjoyed mission inn howey in the hills working for Wooten but that Mallatere was more focused on making mission inn howey in the hills money than taking care of workers. Wooten left the company before the deaths, mission inn howey in the hills they said. Wooten could not be reached for comment.
After moving, Patel came to Boone every month or two and tried to run his companies from long distance, according to the letter filed in the lawsuit. In October 2008, he became entangled with a legal dispute with Mallatere that crippled him financially, he also wrote.
I do miss being in the hotel business but felt like I got burned badly with my dealings with Damon, Patel wrote in an email to the landowners who filed the 2011 suit. He ended up leveraging me to the tune of over $4,000,000.00 over the next 20 years.
In August 2010, 7-year-old Bryson Alexander mission inn howey in the hills Cox, who was attending mission inn howey in the hills a party at the Red Carpet Inn s outdoor pool, fell into a culvert next to a hotel common area. The rushing waters of Boone Creek pulled Cox underground, mission inn howey in the hills and his body was found 1,400 feet downstream, according to a lawsuit filed in 2012 against the hotel and other parties.
Less than a year later, in April 2012, the Boone town council upheld a condemnation order issued by the planning and inspections department for the Scottish Inn, which is adjacent mission inn howey in the hills to the Red Carpet Inn. The order found problems with steps to the second floor, a bearing mission inn howey in the hills wall and the roof of a restaurant that had suffered a fire, among other issues. The owners were also ordered to clean up meth lab conditions in Room 107.
Patel told the Boone town council that losing the Scottish Inn affected the cash flow of his family s businesses. He was unable to refinance loans on two of his other hotels, the La Quinta Inns & Suites and Sleep Inn, and later lost the Hampton Inn to the bank.
On Jan. 9, Patel s family reported him missing and an investigation by Boone police found a suicide note, according to a police report. Police found Patel s green Chevrolet Tahoe parked in the Grandview Overlook parking area on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The hotelier was found 60 feet down the embankment, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to the report.
Ashok was a good person, said one former employee. He ran good properties when he was in town. When he turned over management of the company, it went downhill quickly. Staff writers Ames Alexander mission inn howey in the hills and Gavin Off contributed.
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