Isaac Hager lately misplaced his stakes in two high-profile properties to chapter gross sales, however that may very well be the least of his issues.
The Brooklyn developer has been accused of fraudulently transferring $7.2 million from an entity affiliated with a bankrupt Williamsburg resort undertaking to defend the cash from the property’s collectors, a trustee for the collectors alleges.
In a grievance filed in federal courtroom, the trustee, Nat Wasserstein of Lindenwood Associates, alleges the “transfers had been made with the precise intent to hinder, delay or defraud the debtor’s collectors.”
The lawsuit comes after Hager’s Cornell Realty misplaced management of the event web site at 159 Broadway in a chapter sale to senior lender Madison Realty Capital, who closed on the Williamsburg property in November.
Cornell Realty purchased the event — a first-rate location subsequent to the historic Williamsburgh Financial savings Financial institution constructing and throughout the road from Peter Luger Steakhouse — for $26.3 million in 2017 and filed plans for a 26-story undertaking with a 235-key resort, condos and a bar and restaurant.
In 2019, Madison Realty Capital supplied about $28 million in loans on the property, with Eli Tabak’s Bluestone Group kicking in a $3.5 million mezzanine mortgage. Work on the undertaking acquired underway, however Bluestone initiated a UCC foreclosures on the fairness pursuits within the property shortly after the onset of the pandemic the next 12 months. Madison initiated a foreclosures on its senior debt across the identical time.
Simply earlier than the UCC foreclosures public sale was purported to happen in December 2020, the property entity filed for chapter, briefly delaying the foreclosures and giving the debtor an opportunity to restructure.
The chapter lasted for greater than two years in a White Plains courthouse till Madison’s plan was authorized this summer time.
Wasserstein claims that Hager’s alleged fraudulent transfers occurred between 2017 and 2021, principally previous to the chapter submitting. However the grievance alleges that the debtor entity was both bancrupt on the time of the transfers or was compelled to turn out to be bancrupt because of them. The trustee can also be suing a number of contractors on the property.
Hager’s authorized staff has not but filed a response to the allegations. Hager didn’t return a request to remark, nor did an lawyer for the trustee.
The grievance affords few particulars about how Hager allegedly transferred the cash out of the property entity, however it did identify the entities that allegedly obtained the funds.
Most of them are linked to Hager’s pursuits in Brooklyn and Manhattan, together with 206 Kent Avenue, a retail and workplace improvement in Williamsburg; 255 West thirty fourth Avenue, a deliberate 33-story, 330-room resort close to Penn Station, 428 Wythe, a six-story blended use constructing in Williamsburg, and 730 Lorimer, a small rental constructing in Williamsburg.
A outstanding dealmaker in Brooklyn, Hager is the grandson of the late Rabbi Mordechai Hager, longtime chief of the Viznitz, one of many largest Hasidic sects.
Along with the 159 Broadway undertaking, Hager lately misplaced management of the Tillary Resort, a residential and resort property in Downtown Brooklyn, to lender Ohana Actual Property.
In additional optimistic information, Hager and Daryl Hagler, a nursing residence investor, lately paid $43 million for a Crown Heights web site the place Bruce Eichner’s Continuum Firm as soon as deliberate 1,500 flats.