Friday, September 10, 2010

Ground Zero Mosque Investor Declines Trump's Buyout Offer

FOX NEWS: NEW YORK -- Donald Trump's offer to buy an investor's stake where a mosque is planned near ground zero is falling flat.

Wolodymyr Starosolsky is a lawyer for the investor in the real estate partnership that controls the site. He says Trump's offer is "just a cheap attempt to get publicity and get in the limelight."

In a letter released Thursday by Trump's publicist, the real estate investor told Hisham Elzanaty that he would buy his stake in the lower Manhattan building for 25 percent more than whatever he paid.

"I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation that is destined, in my opinion, to only get worse," the letter said.

Trump also attached a condition to his offer: He said that as part of the deal, the backers of the mosque project would need to promise that any new mosque they constructed would be at least five blocks farther away from the World Trade Center site. >>> Associated Press | Thursday, September 09, 2010