The ski resort at Granby Ranch is seen in an undated photo. (The Denver Post/Granby Ranch)
Marise Cipriani, the former Boulderite who owned Granby Ranch, has been accused in a Denver court of living a life of criminal intrigue, complete with diamond smuggling.
And the accuser is her sibling.
“The fact that they are fighting is distressing to Marise,” said her lawyer, Darrell Daley.
Cipriani, 66, is the daughter and granddaughter of Brazilian entrepreneurs and an heir to the airline and meatpacking fortunes they built. She and her husband bought the Silver Creek ski area in Grand County for $12 million in 1995 and turned it into the Granby Ranch subdivision.
The ski-and-golf area amassed tens of millions of dollars in debt before being sold in 2021.
All the while, Cipriani and her sister Valeria Fontana have been quarreling in local courts for half a decade.
In 2013, Cipriani convinced Fontana to pledge $25 million in stock as collateral for a $19.3 million loan from Chase Bank that Cipriani wanted, according to Fontana. Cipriani defaulted and the bank got the collateral.
Fontana has been trying to get repaid since. She first sued in Denver District Court in 2018 but dropped that lawsuit when Cipriani promised to pay her $6 million from the sale of Granby Ranch and another $8 million over time. That didn’t happen, so Fontana sued again and won a $19.3 million judgment in 2021.
Marise Cipriani at Granby Ranch on April 21, 2000. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
In her latest lawsuit, filed Oct. 9, Fontana makes colorful claims about her sister’s life.
“Complex international loan default schemes, stashing funds and assets with family friends, establishing companies in the name of her housekeeper…using international funds smugglers, and most recently smuggling cut and uncut gems into the U.S.,” she tallies.
It began, in Fontana’s telling, when Cipriani “drove” their family’s airline, Transbrasil, “into bankruptcy.” That forced Cipriani to remain “on the run from creditors” with limited capital after “the bankruptcy court in Brazil (freezed) the assets of Cipriani and her husband” because they had “diverted significant Transbrasil assets to themselves using offshore companies.”
Then came that Chase loan, collateralized “by the only meaningful wealth of her two sisters and mother in Brazil.” Cipriani also liquidated millions of dollars in family assets and moved the cash to Hong Kong to keep it away from creditors, according to her sister. Some are held by companies run by her house cleaner, cook and “spiritual guru,” the sister said.
“Cipriani’s web of companies is truly mind-boggling,” alleges Fontana, who is trying to sue the entire web but laments that the 30 corporations, holding companies, trusts, estates and people she has listed as defendants “represent only a subset of Cipriani’s empire.”
“We have read the complaint,” Cipriani’s lawyer, Daley, said Monday. “It makes pretty grand accusations but it’s pretty light on details — not a whole lot of who, what, when, how — and we believe that’s because they’re tilting at windmills. There’s not a lot of ‘there’ there.
“What (Fontana) refuses to accept is that this was a business deal that went bad. After decades of investing millions of dollars in Granby Ranch, the project failed.
Cipriani spent decades trying to overcome headwinds at Granby Ranch, including the Great Recession, the loss of an investor who was a victim of Bernie Madoff, a death on a chairlift in 2017 and the pandemic, according to her attorney. When it failed, she lost out.
Celso Cipriani, left, and Marise Cipriani in Boulder in 2004. (Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post)
“She acknowledges there is a debt and she was hopeful she would be able to turn Granby Ranch around and get it repaid over time,” Daley said. “That wasn’t in the cards.”
Cipriani has faced allegations of financial impropriety before. In the mid-2000s, she and her husband endured government investigations in Brazil for allegedly plundering from the family airline, the Denver Post reported in 2004. They were not charged with a crime.
More recently, Cipriani has been offering to repay her $19.3 million debt by giving Fontana several million dollars’ worth of uncut gems, both sides say. In April, Cipriani’s son, Guilherme Cipriani, was arrested and charged in Miami with smuggling diamonds into the country. He pleaded guilty, forfeited 67 diamonds and will be sentenced Nov. 16.
Guilherme Cipriani is also a defendant in his aunt’s lawsuit in Denver, along with his father, Celso Cipriani, and sister, Melissa Cipriani. Fontana accuses them and others of “a pattern of racketeering” so large and long-running that it breaks an anti-organized-crime law. Her lawsuit doesn’t say how much money she is seeking from the Ciprianis and others.
Attorney J. Lucas McFarland of McFarland Litigation Partners in Golden represents Fontana. McFarland did not respond to a request to discuss the case last week.
Cipriani, meanwhile, now lives in Brazil, according to her Colorado attorney.
“She went there before COVID to visit and ended up losing her green card,” Daley said. “And she hasn’t come back, since she doesn’t have a job to come back to.”
The ski resort at Granby Ranch is seen in an undated photo. (The Denver Post/Granby Ranch)
Marise Cipriani, the former Boulderite who owned Granby Ranch, has been accused in a Denver court of living a life of criminal intrigue, complete with diamond smuggling.
And the accuser is her sibling.
“The fact that they are fighting is distressing to Marise,” said her lawyer, Darrell Daley.
Cipriani, 66, is the daughter and granddaughter of Brazilian entrepreneurs and an heir to the airline and meatpacking fortunes they built. She and her husband bought the Silver Creek ski area in Grand County for $12 million in 1995 and turned it into the Granby Ranch subdivision.
The ski-and-golf area amassed tens of millions of dollars in debt before being sold in 2021.
All the while, Cipriani and her sister Valeria Fontana have been quarreling in local courts for half a decade.
In 2013, Cipriani convinced Fontana to pledge $25 million in stock as collateral for a $19.3 million loan from Chase Bank that Cipriani wanted, according to Fontana. Cipriani defaulted and the bank got the collateral.
Fontana has been trying to get repaid since. She first sued in Denver District Court in 2018 but dropped that lawsuit when Cipriani promised to pay her $6 million from the sale of Granby Ranch and another $8 million over time. That didn’t happen, so Fontana sued again and won a $19.3 million judgment in 2021.
Marise Cipriani at Granby Ranch on April 21, 2000. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
In her latest lawsuit, filed Oct. 9, Fontana makes colorful claims about her sister’s life.
“Complex international loan default schemes, stashing funds and assets with family friends, establishing companies in the name of her housekeeper…using international funds smugglers, and most recently smuggling cut and uncut gems into the U.S.,” she tallies.
It began, in Fontana’s telling, when Cipriani “drove” their family’s airline, Transbrasil, “into bankruptcy.” That forced Cipriani to remain “on the run from creditors” with limited capital after “the bankruptcy court in Brazil (freezed) the assets of Cipriani and her husband” because they had “diverted significant Transbrasil assets to themselves using offshore companies.”
Then came that Chase loan, collateralized “by the only meaningful wealth of her two sisters and mother in Brazil.” Cipriani also liquidated millions of dollars in family assets and moved the cash to Hong Kong to keep it away from creditors, according to her sister. Some are held by companies run by her house cleaner, cook and “spiritual guru,” the sister said.
“Cipriani’s web of companies is truly mind-boggling,” alleges Fontana, who is trying to sue the entire web but laments that the 30 corporations, holding companies, trusts, estates and people she has listed as defendants “represent only a subset of Cipriani’s empire.”
“We have read the complaint,” Cipriani’s lawyer, Daley, said Monday. “It makes pretty grand accusations but it’s pretty light on details — not a whole lot of who, what, when, how — and we believe that’s because they’re tilting at windmills. There’s not a lot of ‘there’ there.
“What (Fontana) refuses to accept is that this was a business deal that went bad. After decades of investing millions of dollars in Granby Ranch, the project failed.
Cipriani spent decades trying to overcome headwinds at Granby Ranch, including the Great Recession, the loss of an investor who was a victim of Bernie Madoff, a death on a chairlift in 2017 and the pandemic, according to her attorney. When it failed, she lost out.
Celso Cipriani, left, and Marise Cipriani in Boulder in 2004. (Lyn Alweis/The Denver Post)
“She acknowledges there is a debt and she was hopeful she would be able to turn Granby Ranch around and get it repaid over time,” Daley said. “That wasn’t in the cards.”
Cipriani has faced allegations of financial impropriety before. In the mid-2000s, she and her husband endured government investigations in Brazil for allegedly plundering from the family airline, the Denver Post reported in 2004. They were not charged with a crime.
More recently, Cipriani has been offering to repay her $19.3 million debt by giving Fontana several million dollars’ worth of uncut gems, both sides say. In April, Cipriani’s son, Guilherme Cipriani, was arrested and charged in Miami with smuggling diamonds into the country. He pleaded guilty, forfeited 67 diamonds and will be sentenced Nov. 16.
Guilherme Cipriani is also a defendant in his aunt’s lawsuit in Denver, along with his father, Celso Cipriani, and sister, Melissa Cipriani. Fontana accuses them and others of “a pattern of racketeering” so large and long-running that it breaks an anti-organized-crime law. Her lawsuit doesn’t say how much money she is seeking from the Ciprianis and others.
Attorney J. Lucas McFarland of McFarland Litigation Partners in Golden represents Fontana. McFarland did not respond to a request to discuss the case last week.
Cipriani, meanwhile, now lives in Brazil, according to her Colorado attorney.
“She went there before COVID to visit and ended up losing her green card,” Daley said. “And she hasn’t come back, since she doesn’t have a job to come back to.”
