Norfolk City Council bailed Mayor Kenny Alexander’s alleged son — a prominent local rapper — out of a land deal gone bad

In an Ocean View neighborhood with basketball hoops in driveways and American flags hanging from front porches, a vacant piece of land sandwiched between homes quietly exchanged hands five times between 2017 and 2020.

The property — a string of four parcels totaling a third of an acre — is in a marshy, overgrown thicket that recedes into a low-lying swamp, and stands in stark contrast to the manicured lawns across the street. Despite developers buying the land on two separate occasions, nothing was ever built there.

The city seized the land in 2017 for delinquent real estate taxes and auctioned it off.

Three years later, the city bought the property back from its owner — the alleged son of Mayor Kenny Alexander — for the stated purpose of creating a public greenspace and protecting wetlands. In doing so, the city bailed Terrion Jones, a prominent local rapper, out of a soured development project. When Jones and two partners purchased the land, they failed to discover a critical detail: It was unbuildable due to its proximity to the Chesapeake Bay.

Rumors have long persisted that Jones, known in the hip-hop world as Young Money Yawn and a protégé of famous rapper Pusha T, who also was part of this deal, is Alexander’s son from a relationship prior to his marriage.

In a series of phone interviews, Alexander would neither confirm nor deny Jones is his son, saying The Pilot “should ask (Jones’) mother.”

Attempts to contact Jones’ mother were unsuccessful.

When reached by phone, a man believed to be Jones denied it was him and hung up.

Jones, 37, has spoken openly in interviews about his father being “a millionaire” from Norfolk’s Southside community who “wasn’t in his life” when he was growing up. He was convicted on multiple drug charges in 2007 and 2008. A triple shooting in 2016 that made headlines because it was captured on Facebook Live was reportedly in retaliation for a chain that was stolen off Jones’ neck in a robbery.

Alexander, who grew up in Southside, is president and owner of Metropolitan Funeral Service, a funeral home with four chapels in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Suffolk. He was a state delegate and state senator for more than a decade before being elected mayor in 2016.

The New York Daily News published a column in April about a potential Norfolk development project involving musician Pharrell Williams, in which the author claimed Jones is Alexander’s son. The column states that Williams, a member of one of three development teams vying to revamp Military Circle mall, “has an advantage over other bidders because he is friends with the Mayor’s son.”

Alexander denied Williams had any advantage over other developers because of a personal relationship, calling the claim “fake news.”

Alexander explained his role in Jones’ life — and business dealings — as a mentor-like relationship.

Alexander said he “had nothing to do with” the city’s decision to buy the land, but acknowledged his involvement in advising Jones in creating, and later dissolving, a company that purchased the land.

When the land sale reached the City Council, Alexander recused himself from the vote, citing “a personal interest in the transaction.” He wrote in a disclosure statement obtained by The Pilot that he “assisted in (the) settlement of a dispute between parties affected” by the purchase of the land.

Alexander said he initially advised Jones and his business partners about how to create the company that bought the land in 2017, but didn’t know what their plans were. He said he was only alerted the company had purchased land from the city later on when Jones’ attorney, Clay Macon, who also occasionally works as Alexander’s attorney, asked him to help resolve a conflict between the company’s partners.

The chain of events that led to the City Council’s 2020 purchase of the four parcels on Marlow Avenue in Ocean View began in 2017.

The Norfolk Treasurer’s Office, led at the time by Anthony Burfoot, seized the vacant parcels from a previous owner, another development company, due to $900 in delinquent real estate tax payments. And on May 9, 2017, the treasurer’s office put the land up for public auction with an advertisement in The Virginian-Pilot.

That same day, a company called TLTJ was created, according to state corporation records.

The company, whose three managing members were Jones, Pusha T, whose real name is Terrence Thornton, and a real estate developer named Michael Bryant, won the auction for $29,000. The company inked the purchase on Aug. 3.

Pusha T, who grew up in Virginia Beach, has been described as a mentor to Jones in other media outlets, appeared on a song written by Jones, and Jones stated in a 2019 interview the two are close friends.

Before the company purchased the land, Alexander said he “advised” Jones and Pusha T, also a partner in Pharrell’s Military Circle redevelopment proposal, on how to form TLTJ, and recommended they work with Bryant because “he had more experience” than they did, presumably with real estate development.

Bryant told The Pilot in a brief phone call that he “flips houses,” but declined further comment. Attempts to reach Pusha T were unsuccessful.

Despite bringing the group together, Alexander said he didn’t know why the company was being created or if they planned to purchase land.

“I put people together all the time and just get out of the way,” Alexander said.

He said he didn’t hear anything more about the company’s land purchase until about a year later when he was informed by Jones’ attorney, Macon, that a “heated” disagreement had occurred among the company’s three members when they realized the land was unbuildable. Alexander said the attorney called to ask if he would help dissolve the trio’s “tensions.”

“Something didn’t go right, and it blew up,” Alexander said. “I played a role in just trying to keep the peace.”

Alexander said he advised the three men to dissolve TLTJ, and in September 2018 the land was transferred from the company into Jones’ name, making him the sole owner.

But soon this worthless piece of land would become Norfolk taxpayers’ burden.

A year later, in September 2019, Macon wrote a letter to City Attorney Bernard Pishko on behalf of Jones with the subject line “Terrion Jones v. City of Norfolk,” requesting the city repurchase the land because it was “undevelopable.”

“My client is unable to build on the property which is essentially worthless at this time,” Macon wrote. “The City should consider repurchasing this property from (Jones) at the sales price obtained by the City at the time of the purchase.”

Macon said the city treasurer’s office had been “warned” by the city planning department via email before the sale that the parcels should not be sold due to the inability to build on the site.

An email shows a city planner informed the treasurer’s office in July 2019 the lots were unbuildable because the property is entirely within the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area, the land that borders streams and other bodies of water that flow into the bay. The area is typically banned from development under state law.

In a recent interview, Macon said Jones “absolutely” planned to sue if the city didn’t buy it back.

Alexander maintains he was unaware Jones planned to sue the city and had no involvement in him selling the land back to the city. But he said he was informed by Macon around that time that the land could not be developed, and directed Macon to contact the city attorney’s office.

Whether a lawsuit against the city would have been successful is questionable.

The terms and conditions of the city’s sale to TLTJ states the parcels were sold, “AS IS, WITH ALL FAULTS,” in all capital letters, and states that “All parcels are bought at the purchaser’s own risk.” Land transactions typically require the buyer to conduct their own due diligence to determine whether the land will suit their needs.

“The burden is on the buyer,” said Jeremy Root, a real estate attorney and chair of the Virginia Bar Association’s Real Estate Law Council.

Emails from the city attorney’s office responding to Macon’s letter were redacted, as the city cited attorney-client privilege. But several months later, in early 2020, dozens of emails show city employees in the environmental, public works and budget offices trying to find grant money to make the buyback happen.

Finding none, city officials looked to the city’s general fund, and ultimately paid for it with 2016 capital improvement funds earmarked for land acquisition.

Across numerous emails in spring 2020, city officials repeatedly said Norfolk needed the Marlow Avenue properties “to create an open green space for the public and for the protection of the land which is in the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area.” There was no mention of any potential legal action.

When the City Council approved the purchase in September 2020 — for $29,000, the amount Jones’ group paid for it — the justification presented to the public was for “public greenspace” and to “protect wetlands.” There was no mention that the city had sold the property three years earlier.

Councilman Tommy Smigiel, who represents the area, said he was unaware at the time of any potential legal action stemming from an issue with the property owner.

After the purchase was approved, records show the city paid $2,400 for an environmental study of the land. If the city intended to develop the property into anything but raw land, nothing has materialized.

City spokesman Chris Jones said a “finished greenspace was never the intent” of the city’s purchase.

“This site is on non-buildable wetlands and thus serves as greenspace in its current status, with existing vegetation functioning to preserve the wetlands/watershed that abuts these parcels within a designated Chesapeake Bay Preservation Area,” Jones said in an email.

Pishko told The Pilot the city “is the better owner” of the property because it prevents it “from again being abandoned by private owners.”

Tess Baker, who lived next door to the property from 2014 until August, said it never changed in the eight years she lived there. When she learned the city bought it, she said she thought it was being purchased as right-of-way for a new road or highway.

“I remember telling my husband, ‘Why would the city buy that land? It’s not like they can put anything on it,’” Baker said. “It’s just some wetland with some mosquitoes.”

Daniel Berti, daniel.berti@virginiamedia.com