Inside Beto O’Rourke’s Million-Dollar Apartment Deal With A Campaign Donor 8:38 PM 04/11/2019 | Investigative Group
Peter Hasson | Reporter
Beto O’Rourke sold an apartment complex he valued between $1 million and $5 million to a campaign donor shortly before running for Senate.
The building needed significant interior improvements and the basement resembled a horror movie scene when Beto sold it, the current property manager told TheDCNF.
The new owners plan to “cash in” by making the complex “Beto-themed,” the property manager said.
Beto and his campaign donor have offered different explanations for how the sale came to be.
The month before he launched his Senate campaign against Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke offloaded an El Paso, Texas, apartment complex that he valued in financial disclosures at between one and five million dollars.
The buyers were Patricia “Isha” Rogers and her husband, Steve Santamaria, public records show. Rogers is an old family friend and campaign donor for both Beto’s and his father’s political campaigns.
O’Rourke and his mother became co-owners of the building following the death of his father, former El Paso County Judge Pat O’Rourke, in 2001.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) records show Rogers donated thousands of dollars to each of O’Rourke’s three House campaigns, as well as to his 2018 Senate campaign. Rogers also donated $2,000 to Pat O’Rourke’s 1992 campaign for Congress.
The apartment complex, then called Imperial Arms Apartments, was a fixer-upper when Beto sold it, the building’s current property manager told TheDCNF. He declined to make Rogers available for an interview.
The complex needed significant interior work and had none of the several security cameras that now encircle the building when Beto sold it, the property manager added. The building, now called Saint Rogers Apartments, sits a 10-minute drive from the Bridge of the Americas port of entry connecting El Paso and Juarez. It doesn’t have a functioning website.
The basement laundry room resembled a scene from the horror movie “Silence of the Lambs” when Beto sold the building, said the property manager, who expressed doubt that anyone would have wanted to use it at that time.
The new owners renovated the basement, adding a window and a workout area after purchasing the complex, the property manager said. Local artwork currently hangs on the apartment walls, but that may change with Beto’s presidential campaign. The new owners plan to “cash in” on O’Rourke’s political rise by making the building’s interior “Beto-themed,” the property manager added.
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Poster Comment:
Beto should fit right into the mix in Dee Cee.