Pamela Wallin selling Manhattan condo
Wallin has until Sept. 16 to repay just over $100K in disputed travel expenses
CBC News has learned that Senator Pamela Wallin is selling her condominium in the heart of Manhattan, apparently at a considerable loss, adding to a series of mounting financial hits she has taken in the wake of the Senate expense scandal.
The embattled senator has resigned from all of her once lucrative corporate directorships, and the Senate administration has given Wallin until Sept. 16 to repay just over $100,000 in disputed travel expenses, or risk having it docked directly from her pay.
She has already repaid the government just over $38,000 in expense claims.
Wallin has not been charged with any wrongdoing — in fact, the RCMP have not indicated whether they will even launch a formal investigation of her expense claims.
CBC News has confirmed that Wallin has accepted an offer to sell her New York condo in the coming days, but the deal has not yet formally closed.
The condo is in the 34-storey Plaza Tower, a Manhattan property described in a real estate listing as "a proper 'white-glove' co-op with 24/7 doorman, full-time concierge, covered circular driveway … and fabulous roof deck" — all just off New York's iconic Park Avenue.
According to the listing, the condo itself is "an oversized studio" that is "both functional and charming with custom high-end renovations."
Documents from the New York City finance department indicate Wallin paid $379,000 US for the bachelor flat in 2005.
An online real estate site indicates she listed the property in June this year for $349,000, an asking price $30,000 less than she paid eight years ago, and that she accepted an undisclosed offer in mid-August.
Records indicate two other similar bachelor units in the same Plaza Tower both sold in the past year for prices under $290,000. A three-bedroom condo in the same building sold for $2.3 million.
Wallin bought her bachelor condo during her final months as Canada’s consul general in New York, and just before she had to move out of her official diplomatic digs, a spacious residence on Park Avenue.
Her ties to New York continued after her diplomatic posting ended in 2006, when Wallin became a senior adviser on Canada-U.S. relations, serving on the boards of several prominent trade organizations and private corporations.
Wallin's recent troubles were triggered by an independent audit of her expenses for a Senate committee that decided how much she should repay, a process the senator has publicly condemned as seriously flawed.
She resigned from her corporate board positions amid the public controversy surrounding the whole Senate expenses fiasco.
In addition to the New York flat, the former television anchor owns two other properties: a condominium in Toronto, and a modest house in Wadena, Sask., the home she has officially declared as her place of residence.
There is no indication Wallin's disputed Senate travel expenses include any claims for trips to her New York condo since she became a senator in 2009.
Wallin could not be reached for comment.
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