Trump hotel’s alleged unpaid bills top $5M: report

President-elect Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C., allegedly owes over $5 million in unpaid bills, according to a new report.

A third lien was recently filed against the Trump International Hotel, The Washington Post reported Friday, claiming about $2.1 million in unpaid fees after two earlier filings claimed over $3 million combined.

AES Electrical, a company based in Laurel, Md., filed a Dec. 22 mechanic’s lien with the D.C. government when the Trump Organization and its construction manager, Lendlease, stopped paying it.

{mosads}“We had people there well over 12 hours a day for weeks because [the hotel] had a hard opening of Sept. 12 and you can’t open if the lights don’t work and the fire alarms don’t work and the fire marshal can’t expect it,” said Tim Miller, AES’s executive vice president. “There is a lot of work that went into that hotel, and it didn’t happen by accident.”

AES claims it assigned 45 members of its staff to work 12-hour shifts for nearly 50 consecutive days to finish the electrical, fire and lighting systems at Trump’s hotel on time.

Miller said the company has a $17 million contract with Trump but is missing $2 million after the frantic schedule.

“We’re not in this for any sort of political reason,” he said. “We have no ax to grind, political or otherwise.

“We have 700 employees that we pay every week. We have bills. We are effectively financing this work, and we don’t think it is right. That’s really it.”

Reports emerged Thursday two other liens have been filed against the Trump International Hotel following its completion.

A&D Construction Inc., a Virginia-based company that installed crown molding and wall base in the hotel, filed a lien on Nov. 9 claiming Trump owed $79,900.

Joseph J. Magnolia, Inc., a plumbing company, meanwhile, filed a claim in late December it is owed $2.98 million for more than two years of work.

The Trump Organization did not address the specifics of all three cases when responding to inquiries from the Post.

“In developments of this scale and complexity the filing of nominal liens at the conclusion of construction is not uncommon as part of the close out process,” it said in a statement Friday.