News

By Steve Plunkett

The lawyer seeking repayment of a $406,000 business loan from two-time Boca Raton mayoral candidate Al Zucaro subpoenaed Zucaro’s wife, philanthropist Yvonne Boice, for a deposition in October.
Bernard Lebedeker represents hotel owner Joseph Della Ratta’s DR Palm Beach Inc., which lent Zucaro the money in 2003. The attorney asked Boice, who married Zucaro in 2009, to come to his office in West Palm Beach with “any and all documents” that reflect “the transfer of any money or any property from you to Alfred Zucaro,” “any gifts you have given” and “the transfer of any funds from any trust for which you are a trustee or beneficiary.”
Lebedeker also wanted “any and all bank statements” for any accounts titled in Boice and Zucaro’s name “or in which both you and Alfred Zucaro have signing authority.”
Lebedeker has said Zucaro’s debt with interest now tops $700,000.
Zucaro did not return a phone call seeking comment before deadline.
Lebedeker similarly did not reply to emails asking about the deposition.
Zucaro, 69, lost to Scott Singer in the Aug. 28 special election for mayor. He or his law firm loaned and gave his campaign $15,500; others contributed $44,133.
He was more generous in his 2017 mayoral race, lending or giving his campaign $62,750. Other supporters gave him $48,267 then.
On his 2018 campaign Statement of Financial Interests, Zucaro, an immigration lawyer who also started the now-dormant BocaWatch.org blog, listed his law practice, his International Council of Advisors LLC consultancy and Social Security benefits as his primary sources of income.
He reported secondary income from his World Trade Management LLC, his Palm Beach Investment and Finance LLC and in legal fees from Shoppes on 18th Street Inc., a holding company owned by his wife. That business sold Boice’s Shoppes at Village Point shopping center west of the city in 2014 for $12.25 million.
Zucaro, who lives with Boice in a house she owns on Golden Harbour Drive, also reported that he owns no real property. The only liability he listed was his debt to DR Palm Beach.
Della Ratta’s company lent Zucaro and World Trade Management $240,000 in 2003 and sued four years later after not being repaid. In 2009, Palm Beach Circuit Judge Donald Hafele said the evidence showed Zucaro used much of the money for personal expenses instead of spending it as intended to lure international business to the county. He entered a judgment requiring Zucaro to repay the money with 8 percent interest, making the total then $406,000.
Zucaro, who had come under fire in West Palm Beach for how he managed his struggling World Trade Center, appealed and lost.
Della Ratta’s company owns the Best Western Palm Beach Lakes Inn and the Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham hotel in West Palm Beach.