Trump businesses honored by NY company closely tied to Trump

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a dozen Donald Trump golf courses, hotels, casinos and private clubs have been honored with "Star Diamond" awards from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences, a company that doles out shiny plaques representing "the most prestigious award of true excellence in hospitality."

An AP review shows that about half the roughly 30 American Academy of Hospitality Sciences trustees listed in the company's own press materials appear to be Trump friends and business associates.

While the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences has given awards to hotels and restaurants around the globe, including famed Manhattan restaurants Le Cirque and Jean-Georges, the company has also honored Mexican food, Poland's tourism board and Sepp Blatter, the former president of soccer's scandal-plagued governing body, for "making the world's greatest sport even better."

A 1999 lawsuit against Cinque by a former business partner alleges award-winners paid promotional fees to be named in the group's glossy publications, calling the academy "merely the alter ego of Cinque."

A decade after that, Trump friend Stewart Rahr, a billionaire pharmaceutical wholesaler, sued Cinque and his organization, saying that they failed to publish a "man of the year" profile of his philanthropic efforts despite being paid a $25,000 fee.

According to a 1995 profile in New York Magazine, Cinque pleaded guilty to a felony after police broke down the door of his Manhattan apartment and found a trove of valuable stolen art, including prints by Marc Chagall.