Did Donald Trump Prevent a Black Man from Boarding His Yacht?

On 31 May 2018, a Florida man named Jesse Pariseau tweeted about an encounter he allegedly had with Donald Trump over three decades earlier, during which Trump supposedly prevented a maritime engineer from boarding his yacht “because [the man] was black”:

However, that single anecdotal tweet appears to be the full substance of the claim. As far as we know, Pariseau has so far declined all attempts by news outlets (including ours) to interview him and verify his story, and he later deleted his attention-getting tweet, claiming the responses it was generating were becoming “scary”:

I was getting some very scary interactions so I decided to delete the tweet in the yacht. My family got a little scared with the comments against me. I had no choice. What have we come too?

— Jesse p (@JessePariseau) June 1, 2018

Although Pariseau also stated that he had “told the Trump yacht story about 10 times over the last year,” we couldn’t turn up any reference to it antedating his initial tweet of 31 May 2018:

Good grief Charlie Brown. I've told the trump yacht story about 10 times over the last year with nary a peep. Tonight over 75 likes and retweets so far. I wonder if its finally sunk in that he has a history of racism.

— Jesse p (@JessePariseau) June 1, 2018

We also have not yet been able to locate any documentation of the breach of contract lawsuit Donald Trump allegedly filed against Jesse Pariseau — which Pariseau asserted Trump lost — even when we expanded our search after Pariseau corrected his initial account to state the event in question took place in 1988 rather than 1983:

The 1983 date is a Typo. It was 1988. Sorry for the confusion.

— Jesse p (@JessePariseau) June 1, 2018

Pariseau also stated that he no longer had documentation related to his claim:

How many of you held onto 30 year old documents? I suggested the doubters call the boat yards in New York for their stories. One more thing. I heard from the daughter of the marine architect who was working on the design of the 2nd yacht. The deal fell through. Surprised?

— Jesse p (@JessePariseau) June 4, 2018

So, for the time being what we have is sensational tale that is not documented by anything other than a personal anecdote offered in a since-deleted tweet.