The ex-director of the Trump Tower condo board in Chicago accused the owners and managers of the skyscraper of fraud in a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, alleging they retaliated against him for speaking out about alleged financial malfeasance and had him arrested while taking a steam in the tower’s spa.
The complaint, which lists Trump Inc., the building management and the current president of the tower’s condo association as defendants, alleges that management operated the building at the expense of the people who owned units in the skyscraper and obscured financial information in doing so.
The complainant, 46-year-old Onisim Dorneanu of Wisconsin, until recently owned a total of 16 units in the building and lived in one of the units part-time, according to the filing. The lawsuit does not request a specific amount in damages.
Neither Trump Inc. nor the condo board president immediately responded to a request for comment Wednesday afternoon.
Dorneanu was arrested Feb. 2 and charged with misdemeanor trespassing at the spa inside Trump Tower, records show. The arrest occurred a few months after he resigned his position on the condominium board and was told he could not use the tower’s facilities, the complaint states.
Dorneanu made his first appearance in Cook County circuit court Wednesday morning, where prosecutors dropped the case with room for it to be reinstated.
According to the lawsuit, Dorneanu began buying property in the tower in 2019 and became director of the condo board in March 2023. While in that position, the suit states, Dorneanu grew concerned over the “high frequency” of losses he and other investors at the property incurred and about a “lack of transparency” around how the hotel operated and spent money.
Dorneanu allegedly voiced his concerns to the president of the condo board, the owner of a flooring company that allegedly does business with the building. According to the lawsuit, the condo board president dismissed those allegations.
Dorneanu also allegedly heard from tower employees and vendors that they had witnessed misconduct by high-level employees. He later wrote to the rest of the condo board and to executives at Trump, Inc. about his concerns, prompting an investigation in June 2024 that the lawsuit described as “a cover-up.”
“Trump Inc. and its individual executives attempted to conceal the hotel manager’s misconduct from Dorneanu because the hotel manager was operating the hotel to the financial benefit of itself and 401 North Wabash at the expense of individual investors,” the lawsuit states.
After a Trump Inc. executive told Dorneanu that his fears were “irrefutably not supported by facts,” the complaints states that Dorneanu contacted the condo board president again over his concerns about how the hotel’s money was being handled. He resigned from the board in August 2024, according to the complaint.
Days after he resigned, the suit alleges that an attorney for hotel management claimed that Dorneanu was acting not “to address any legitimate business concerns, but rather, to seek retribution against certain individuals.”
In November 2024, building management barred Dorneanu from using its spa, health club and other commercial spaces, the complaint states. He was arrested Feb. 2 while using the steam room in the tower spa.
Dorneanu began selling his property in the tower earlier this month, according to the complaint.
