A SLIPPERY SLOPE

How a rural ski resort became embroiled in an international fraud. 

- SHEELAH KOLHATKAR

As the general manager of the Jay Peak ski resort, Bill Stenger rose most days around 6 A.M. and arrived at the slopes before seven. He’d check in with his head snowmaker and the ski-patrol staff, visit the two hotels on the property, and chat with the maintenance workers, the lift operators, the food-and-beverage manager, and the ski-school instructors—a kind of management through constant motion. Stenger is seventy-five, with white hair, wire-rimmed reading glasses, and a sturdy physique that makes him look built for fuzzy sweaters. He told me recently, of skiing, “I love the sport. It’s a dynamic sport, and, if it ’s properly taught, it is life-changing.” On April 13, 2016, he had f inished his morning rounds and was drinking coffee with the head of the snow-grooming department when his assistant called. “You need to come over to the office right away,” she said, sounding nervous. “Some folks from the S.E.C. are here.”

Stenger shows an ability to cling to optimism even when the facts don’t warrant it. He didn’t panic at first. “For all I knew, they were coming to take a tour of the place,” he told me. He drove down to the cluster of trailers that served as the resort’s administrative hub and noticed five or six black S.U.V.s in the parking lot. Inside the office, his staff was standing around awkwardly. A lawyer named Jeffrey Schneider told Stenger that the Securities and Exchange Commission was seizing the resort from Stenger’s business partner, Ariel Quiros. It was also seizing Burke Mountain, an- other ski hill owned by Quiros, an hour away. At that moment, Quiros’s office in Miami was being raided by S.E.C. agents. Schneider handed Stenger an eightyone-page document alleging that Stenger and Quiros had committed fraud.