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Billionaire Developer's 'Deteriorating Condition' Revealed in Court

Tamir Sapir , Soviet-born cabbie turned Big Apple real estate titan, has had an interesting last few years. His company, the Sapir Organiation , helped develop such high-profile buildings as Trump Soho. He bought (for $40 million) and sold (for $44 million) Fifth Avenue's iconic Duke Semans Mansion. He pleaded guilty to bringing illegal endangered animal carcasses into the country aboard his 150-foot yacht. Like we said, interesting times! But is he aware that any of it happened ? According to his lawyer, probably not.

Sapir is being sued for $130 million by GSO Re Onshore, a fund controlled by the Blackstone Group, over an unpaid loan used to develop the William Beaver House , the luxury Financial District condo building designed by Andre Balazs. The case has been making its way through the court system, and the proceedings so far, archived for public consumption (search using the index number 650367/2010) have featured salacious accusations, including conspiratorial shenanigans by a Sapir attorney and partner.

Sapir's defense for why he amended the loan and made such big personal guarantees that helped the debt spiral out of control is simple: He was tricked! How did one of the richest men in the world get duped at his own game? That's where things get really weird. According to Sapir's attorney, Stephen Meister, the billionaire has been suffering from a "deteriorating mental condition" called aphasia . This has left him unable to do little more than smile and sign his name? since 1998 .

This shocking revelation came during the most recent court date earlier this month, the transcript of which was posted online on August 19. On page 20 of the 26-page document, Meister asks the court to seal his statement , which is denied by the judge. After a brief recess requested by Meister so that he can contact his client, he tells all.

It's long been reported that Alex Sapir, Tamir's son, is now calling the shots at the Sapir Organization (the elder Sapir is listed as the company's chairman), but has one of the most powerful figures in New York City real estate really been only capable of signing his name for over a decade? And if so, how was it kept a secret for so long? Because it had to be, according to Meister, who tells the court that word leaking out about Sapir's condition will cause lenders acting in a "predatory manner" to swoop in and damage the company. A plot twist worthy of daytime TV, made even more jarring when read on the cold, indifferent pages of court transcripts:

· Lender Seeks Foreclosure at 37% Sold William Beaver House [Curbed] · All Tamir Sapir coverage [Curbed] · The Sapir Organization [Official Site]

William Beaver House

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Live like a Russian billionaire in this over-the-top Long Island mansion, which just hit the market for $100 million

Whether you want to relive the glamour of the Roaring Twenties or just want to see what life is like for a Russian billionaire, this $100 million property on New York's Long Island has got you covered.

First built in 1928, this 8-acre Long Island estate has all of the modern luxuries you would hope to get in a home of that price.

"This is truly a premier residence that offers the discerning buyer immense privacy less than an hour away from New York City," listing agent Diane Polland said in a press release announcing the $100 million listing.

The estate was previously owned by Tamir Sapir, a Russian é migr é who made his fortune in New York real estate. He died in 2014.

The current owner, whose identity is shrouded in mystery by a limited-liability corporation, bought the estate in 2013 for $15. 85 million, but they never moved in .

One of the largest and most expensive homes on Long Island's North Shore is up for sale again.

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Located in the village of Kings Point, the 8-acre estate lies about 25 miles from Manhattan.

tamir sapir yacht

Much of that acreage is taken up by manicured lawns and gardens. Long, winding driveways lead to the several different structures situated on the property.

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The main house was built in 1928 and is a turreted stone mansion, evoking much of the glamour and glitz of the Roaring Twenties.

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It's since been updated many times over, and it has all the modern luxuries one might expect at this price point.

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In the time since the main house was built, two other guesthouses were added to the property, increasing the livable square feet to 60,000.

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Tons of outdoor spaces have been built to enjoy the greenery.

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Gold doors welcome you into the main residence.

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The kitchen sits under stained-glass skylights. It has plenty of custom touches, like stone flooring, two steel refrigerators, and a center-island-mounted range and hood.

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The bathrooms are also custom-built, with lots of glass and marble.

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Solariums filled with stone and gem work are situated around the house. Onyx, lapis, agate, and malachite were all used.

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The main house also has a ballroom, lazy river, hair salon, wine vault, indoor racquetball court, gym, spa, sauna, indoor pools, and even a two-story doll house. Another building houses a bowling alley, casino room, and even a shooting range.

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The property's history is apparent in the backyard of the main residence, where old-growth trees have stood for nearly a century.

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Multiple themed gardens are strewn through the property. A Japanese, English, and rose garden are all included.

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The fountains and statues on the property were inspired by the Peterhof Grand Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia.

tamir sapir yacht

A full-size tennis court also sits on the property, though it appears the new owner will have to supply their own net.

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Behind the main house, through the garden, and past the tennis court, you'll find another pool. This one has its own waterslide.

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A private pier in the back juts out into the Long Island Sound and can accommodate a yacht up to 200 feet long.

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Ever since a series of bankruptcies left banks unwilling to lend to him, Donald Trump has been on the lookout for partners willing to fund the buildings that bear his name.

Over the years the US presidential candidate has assembled an eclectic collection of backers and collaborators. Some had chequered pasts, with links to organised crime or fraud schemes. But perhaps the biggest risk for Mr Trump’s complex, often opaque, business empire was that it might be used for a purpose US officials fear is rife in the country’s real estate sector: laundering dirty money.

A Financial Times investigation has found evidence that one Trump venture has multiple ties to an alleged international money laundering network. Title deeds, bank records and correspondence show that a Kazakh family accused of laundering hundreds of millions of stolen dollars bought luxury apartments in a Manhattan tower part-owned by Mr Trump and embarked on major business ventures with one of the tycoon’s partners.

As Mr Trump runs for the White House , the revelations raise questions about what steps his business takes to ensure that the funds that pour through it are clean.

Jennifer Shasky Calvery, then director of the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, warned in January that “corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium US real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money”.

One former executive at a developer that worked with Mr Trump accused him of “wilful obliviousness” to the details of his partners’ dealings. But a spokesman for the Trump Organisation said it conducted “extensive” background checks on its partners, including hiring outside investigators.

One of those partners, Bayrock , has already been a source of controversy. Now the details of Bayrock’s association with the family of Viktor Khrapunov, a former Kazakh energy minister and ex-mayor of the city of Almaty, show it was connected to an alleged laundering scheme at the same time as it was collaborating with Mr Trump.

Lawyers for Almaty told a US court in March that Mr Khrapunov and his family “conspired to systematically loot hundreds of millions of dollars of public assets . . . and to launder their ill-gotten gains through a complex web of bank accounts and shell companies . . . particularly in the United States”.

tamir sapir yacht

Mr Khrapunov, who now lives in Switzerland, says he is being targeted for opposing the man he used to serve, President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan ’s authoritarian ruler since 1989. His supporters say the family’s fortune comes from business success, not embezzlement.

Among the dozens of companies the Almaty lawyers say the Khrapunov laundering network used were three called Soho 3310, Soho 3311 and Soho 3203. Each was a limited liability company, meaning their ownership could easily be concealed.

The companies were created in April 2013 in New York. A week later, property records show, they paid a total of $3.1m to buy the apartments that corresponded with their names in the Trump Soho, a 46-storey luxury hotel-condominium completed in 2010 in a chic corner of Manhattan.

Bank statements submitted by Almaty’s lawyers indicate that the ultimate beneficiary of the Soho companies was Elvira Kudryashova, Mr Khrapunov’s California-based daughter. According to the Kazakh government, she, with her brother Ilyas, is a key link in the family’s laundering network.

Shortly before the Soho companies bought the apartments, more than $3.1m flowed out of Ms Kudryashova’s Wells Fargo account to the firm of Martin Jajan, a New York lawyer. Mr Jajan proceeded to sign purchase documents for the Trump Soho apartments as buyer’s agent. Other bank records show further links between Ms Kudryashova and her relatives and the Soho shell companies. Mr Jajan did not respond to a request for comment.

On the face of it, Mr Trump was not a beneficiary of the apartment sales. The vendor was another limited liability company, Bayrock/Sapir Organization LLC. It was named after the developers that jointly built Trump Soho: the Sapir Organisation, founded by Tamir Sapir, from Georgia, and Bayrock, founded by Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official.

According to regulatory filings, however, Bayrock/Sapir Organization LLC had a third co-owner — the man who licensed his personal brand to the project.

The Trump Soho, announced in 2006, was an early example of a building that bore the Trump name but was built by someone else. Mr Trump’s access to finance had been curtailed by bankruptcies. But as the star of The Apprentice , his celebrity stock was rising. Partners such as Sapir and Bayrock were prepared to pay to license his name.

tamir sapir yacht

Until it fell into financial trouble and changed hands in a 2014 foreclosure sale, Mr Trump enjoyed an 18 per cent share of the profits of the Trump Soho. Alan Garten, general counsel of the Trump Organisation, said Bayrock and the Sapir Organisation were responsible for apartment sales and for conducting due diligence on buyers. Both companies declined to comment.

Mr Garten said he had “no doubt” that “every legal requirement” had been fulfilled. Asked how a member of the Khrapunov family could nonetheless have bought apartments in the Trump Soho — two years after the family was charged in Kazakhstan with financial crimes — he said: “Maybe there’s something wrong with the law but we can’t fault [Bayrock and Sapir] for complying with the laws.”

The laws regulating US real estate deals are scant, experts say. Provisions against terrorism financing in the Patriot Act, passed in the aftermath of the September 11 2001 attacks, obliged mortgage lenders to conduct “know your customer” research. But money launderers pay in cash. Sales such as those of the Trump Soho apartments have passed through this loophole, which was partially closed only this year.

In January, the US launched a pilot programme designed to identify the ultimate owners of shell companies used to buy premium property in Manhattan and Miami. In July officials reported that the new rules had corroborated concerns that “all-cash luxury purchases of residential property by a legal entity are highly vulnerable to abuse for money laundering ”.

A spokesman for the Khrapunov family declined to answer detailed questions about the Soho apartment transactions and other deals. “Kazakhstan is using the legal systems of western countries to harass, wear down and destroy political opponents,” the spokesman said. All the Khrapunov family’s business activities “have been conducted in full accordance with Swiss laws,” he added.

Mr Garten of the Trump Organisation said: “We have no knowledge of who [the Khrapunov family] are and have done no business with them.”

Mr Trump’s former partners Bayrock, however, have dealt with them.

As work on Trump Soho got under way in 2007, the partnership between Mr Trump and Bayrock was gathering momentum. Another tower, in Fort Lauderdale, was rising. A 2008 Bayrock presentation includes a picture of Mr Trump grinning beside Mr Arif and names him as a referee. Bayrock had its office on the 24th floor of Trump Tower and calls the Trump Organisation a “strategic partner”.

The same presentation says Bayrock was one of the backers of the redevelopment of the 101-year-old Hotel du Parc on the shores of Lake Geneva, owned by Swiss Development Group, a Geneva-based company. In May this year, Nicolas Bourg, a Belgian businessman who says he worked with Viktor Khrapunov’s son Ilyas on US real estate deals, claimed in a separate dispute that Swiss Development Group was “owned and controlled by Ilyas and his family and used to conceal the movement and investment of his family’s money”.

Eric Trump, Tevfik Arif, Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump, Tamir Sapir, Alex Sapir and Julius Schwarz at the Trump Soho launch in 2007 (Photo by Mark Von Holden/WireImage)

Swiss Development Group said it had been sold in 2013 but that it was still suffering “relentless and unsubstantiated pressure . . . for the sole reason [that] it was linked at some point in time to someone the Kazakh government wants to prosecute”.

The Kazakh government has also accused Helvetic Capital SA, another Swiss company, of being a vehicle for Khrapunov laundering. According to a 2007 draft contract, seen by the FT, Helvetic Capital planned to enter a $1.5m joint venture called KazBay. Its partner was to be Bayrock.

In a 2011 deposition, given in a dispute over the Fort Lauderdale project, Mr Trump said he had “never really understood who owned Bayrock”. Jody Kriss, a former Bayrock finance director, has claimed in racketeering lawsuits against his former employer that Bayrock’s backers included “hidden interests in Russia and Kazakhstan”. Bayrock has denied Mr Kriss’s allegations but declined to answer questions about the source of its funds and its relationship with the Khrapunovs.

Asked if the Trump Organisation had known where Bayrock’s money came from, Mr Garten said: “No. I had no reason to question the source of funds. Its principal investor [Mr Arif] had a successful track record.” He added: “When you do due diligence you act in good faith and try to look at all relevant material but there’s only a certain degree that you can look at things. You can do as much as possible but you are limited to public records.”

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International Edition

#410 Tamir Sapir

Distribution of billionaires by residence.

For billionaires with publicly traded fortunes, net worths were calculated using share prices and exchange rates from February 13, 2006.

Naftali unveils sprawling $600M Williamsburg Wharf “urban resort”

Tamir Sapir’s Long Island palace asking $100M

60,000 square foot mansion has 13 bedrooms and 35 bathrooms

From Luxury Listings NYC:   When Marie Antoinette felt homesick in Versailles, she decided to build herself a mini Austrian village to remind her of all the people she used to oppress back in her own country.

We’re happy to report that the practice of crazy-rich foreigners recreating their lives back in the homeland is still happening. Just take this $100 million estate that just went on the market in Kings Point, Long Island. The home used to belong to Soviet billionaire — and Sapir Organization founder — Tamir Sapir, who  died in 2014 . For all his wealth, it seems the only thing Sapir wanted in life was to be a tsar in Russia, and so he built a house that would allow him to live that fantasy.

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And yes, that means it may actually be more insane than the Peterhof Grand Palace in St. Petersburg. The 60,000 square-foot house has 13 bedrooms and 35 bathrooms; a ballroom and “several indoor pools” (because one is never enough), including a lazy river that runs through the house; as well as “a hair salon, wine vault and tasting room, indoor racquetball court, gym, saunas, steam rooms, spa treatment rooms and the doll house.” Somehow, we get the feeling that the doll house is larger than most Manhattan apartments. Gems like onyx, lapis, agate and malachite decorate the rooms.

As if that is not enough, there are two other houses with “more indoor pools, a bowling alley, a casino room and a shooting range.” And don’t forget the fountains inspired by those at the Peterhof Palace, the outdoor pool with swim up bars overlooking the Long Island Sound, the private pier where you can park your 200-foot yacht, the tennis court and, in case you are feeling sentimental, Japanese, English and rose gardens. Marie Antoinette couldn’t have planned it better herself.

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Brass Knuckles Over 2 Broadway; M.T.A. and Landlord Are Fighting It Out Over Rent and Renovations

By Charles V Bagli

  • Aug. 9, 2000

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is on rent strike. It stopped paying rent on its office space at 2 Broadway, claiming in a lawsuit that its landlord defaulted on his promise to renovate the building.

The landlord has countersued, claiming that the price to renovate the building soared after the authority shifted some of its own responsibility to build the interior spaces onto his contractors, who are upgrading the building's infrastructure.

Observers say that the dispute really arose when the M.T.A.'s unrealistic expectations rubbed up against the building management's inexperience at handling commercial renovations.

It has all escalated to the point where there are now five lawsuits in New York courts, and the landlord, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union whose first job in New York was driving a cab, has been barred from setting foot in his own building.

The landlord, Tamir Sapir, has come a long way since he was cruising for fares. He told his side of the story over a nine-course meal on his 156-foot motor yacht, Mystere, which was anchored 200 yards from the dock at his 11-acre estate in Kings Point, N.Y.

The $350,000 Cartier watch on Mr. Sapir's wrist flashed as he condemned what he said was the authority's brass-knuckle negotiating over 2 Broadway, his 32-story, 1.6-million-square-foot building in Lower Manhattan, opposite Bowling Green.

Mr. Sapir contends in a lawsuit that the estimated bill for renovations has more than tripled to $156 million as the authority has inflated bills and shifted some of its own costs to his account. He charged in an affidavit that the authority refused to pay more than $10 million in rent in a ploy to force him into foreclosure so that it could buy the building at a low price.

Mr. Sapir said he had not stepped inside 2 Broadway for more than 17 months, ever since the authority, his sole tenant there, barred him from entering without its permission.

''I love that building,'' said Mr. Sapir, speaking in a strong Georgian accent. ''But what should have cost $39 million has cost $156 million, and I can't even go in there.''

At one point, Mr. Sapir said, he and his lenders were so desperate to resolve the situation that they hired Alfonse M. D'Amato, the former senator, to talk to the transportation authority to bring an end to the warfare. Nothing worked.

The authority has declined to comment on the case, citing the lawsuits. Its lawyers have complained in court about clogged pipes and backed-up toilets that Mr. Sapir was required to fix.

Privately, executives at the authority said that Mr. Sapir's building managers were incompetent. Real estate executives in the city say that although Mr. Sapir may be a shrewd buyer, he is a poor operator who has a reputation as a late payer among contractors and real estate brokers who were owed commissions on his other buildings.

Mr. Sapir (pronounced suh-PEER), 52, left the Soviet Union in 1973 with a wave of Jewish immigrants. He landed in New York in 1976, where he drove a cab for three years before borrowing $10,000 against his taxi medallion to open a small electronics store. The store, at 200 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron neighborhood, became a wholesale outlet for Soviet diplomats, K.G.B. agents and Politburo members.

The contacts Mr. Sapir made in New York proved a boon when the Soviet Union collapsed. By the early 1990's, Mr. Sapir said, he was trading container loads of consumer electronics for multimillion-dollar oil contracts.

''He cultivated people who came to the U.S. looking for a friendly person with whom they could deal,'' said Peter Pettibone, who was a lawyer for the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Trade and Economic Council, which is defunct.

Mr. Sapir emerged on the New York real estate scene in 1994 with a pile of cash, eager to buy in a market devastated by a recession and corporate layoffs. He bought 2 Broadway a year later for $20.5 million. By 1999, the property was worth more than $200 million.

''The guy made some brilliant real estate investments,'' said Darcy Stacom, a real estate broker at Cushman & Wakefield who sold Mr. Sapir four buildings in the mid-1990's.

In the meantime, Mr. Sapir picked up the accouterments of tycoons, including a home in Kings Point, a wealthy village on the North Shore of Long Island. He has been rebuilding his 64,000-square-foot mansion for more than five years, installing a swimming pool, a squash court and a bowling alley. Italian marble adorns everything from the living room floor to the boiler room walls.

For years, Mr. Sapir said, he has been dogged by ugly rumors about the source of his wealth. ''They say I'm mafia, that I'll be indicted for money laundering,'' he complained. ''It didn't happen. Everything was done in the most legitimate way. No money laundering. No mafia.''

In July 1998, the M.T.A. was in a hurry to consolidate its operations, which were scattered across two dozen buildings in Manhattan. On the day that the authority announced it was selling its office building and the Coliseum at Columbus Circle to the Related Companies and Time Warner for $345 million, it signed a 49-year lease for 2 Broadway. Mr. Sapir expected to net about $19 million a year from the lease, while the authority would be paying about $14 a square foot in annual rent, or one-third the going rate in the area.

But the authority needed 2 Broadway to be ready for occupancy within a year, a remarkably short time frame for a building that required enormous work after years of neglect, real estate executives said.

Under the agreement, Mr. Sapir would get up to $7 million in development fees and incentives to rebuild the lobby, elevators, bathrooms and heating systems, at a cost then estimated at $39 million to $55 million. If the cost exceeded that sum, the authority would lend the money at a low interest rate, and Mr. Sapir would pay it back by reducing the rent over 30 years. The authority then planned to spend an additional $328 million outfitting the interior space.

Real estate brokers and some executives at the authority said that neither Mr. Sapir nor the man who oversaw his real estate empire, Fred Contini, had any experience with major commercial renovations.

By December 1998, the authority's lawyer, John B. Wood, complained that work was proceeding slowly and filed a lawsuit claiming that the landlord had failed to get the proper insurance and performance bonds for contractors. He also objected to a short-term $86.5 million loan that Mr. Sapir took against the building from Credit Suisse First Boston, worried that if Mr. Sapir defaulted, the authority could be evicted.

Two months later, Mr. Wood abruptly chose Mr. Contini to replace Mr. Sapir as the project developer, despite the fact that Mr. Contini was already overseeing the troubled project for Mr. Sapir. In the midst of the project, Mr. Contini and Mr. Sapir had a falling out. Mr. Contini would not comment other than to say he had nothing to do with the problems between the M.T.A. and Mr. Sapir.

''Contini was in the best position to get the job done,'' said an authority executive who was involved in the project, ''rather than bringing in a whole new guy.''

At the same time, Mr. Sapir tried to place a new $230 million mortgage on 2 Broadway, money that would allow him to pay off bills and to finance renovations at three other buildings he owned.

Knowing that a landlord-tenant dispute would scare away any bank, Mr. Sapir said, Mr. Wood refused to make peace unless he agreed to a long list of concessions. So, Mr. Sapir said, he finally agreed to step aside as project developer in May 1999. But he remained responsible for the project's costs without power over how the money was spent. The transportation authority then estimated the cost of his renovations at $120 million.

From then on, ''Wood and Contini controlled the whole job,'' said a construction executive who was involved in 2 Broadway. ''When the M.T.A. took over, the costs changed. Huge upgrades went in.''

But Mr. Wood continued to block the new mortgage, Mr. Sapir said. First Boston, which had been willing to lend him the money, finally quit out of frustration, according to one banker who was involved in the deal.

Mr. Sapir was finally able to get a new mortgage last September, but not before he and his lenders, CTL Capital and Capital Lease Funding, hired Mr. D'Amato to try to work out a peace treaty with the authority's chairman, E. Virgil Conway.

''We paid D'Amato $500,000,'' Mr. Sapir said. ''He was hired to go to the M.T.A. We got the financing as soon as he was involved.''

Executives at CTL Capital and Capital Lease, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity, confirmed Mr. Sapir's account.

A spokeswoman for Mr. D'Amato, Lisa DeWald, said that the former senator had represented CTL Capital and Capital Lease, not Mr. Sapir, whom, she said, Mr. D'Amato did not know. She said that Mr. D'Amato ''did not act as a lobbyist,'' but would not discuss his duties. Mr. D'Amato is not registered with the state as a lobbyist.

Tom Kelly, a spokesman for the transportation authority, said that neither Mr. Conway nor any other official at the authority had talked to Mr. D'Amato about the problems at 2 Broadway.

Whatever happened, the detente was short-lived. In March, Mr. Sapir said, he asked the authority to hold off payment of $600,000 in bonuses to Mr. Contini for completing work on time. He said an angry Mr. Wood demanded that he withdraw the request, and when he did not, the authority refused to pay rent.

Mr. Sapir retaliated by filing a lawsuit claiming that the authority was in default on the lease, the first step toward eviction.

The authority, in turn, filed a lawsuit claiming ''massive defaults'' on Mr. Sapir's part and got an injunction preventing eviction. It demanded $36 million in immediate rent reductions.

Mr. Sapir, who said the legal battles were costing him $150,000 a month, then went to court demanding that the authority pay rent while the dispute was adjudicated. He said that his lenders told him that they could foreclose if he did not pay $10 million by September. In subsequent court papers, the authority played down Mr. Sapir's dire predictions and suggested that the landlord was rich enough ''to write a check for $10 million tomorrow.''

But Judge Rolando T. Acosta of Civil Court ruled on July 27 that the authority must pay $1.7 million a month in rent, including back rent, until the dispute is resolved in State Supreme Court. Mr. Kelly, the authority spokesman, said this ruling was being appealed.

In the meantime, the M.T.A. had lent the money for the work, now up to $156 million, at an extremely low interest rate, 1.25 percent. This was on top of its own $328 million in building improvements.

''They've gotten themselves into a deal,'' one real estate executive said, ''where they could have built a building from the ground up cheaper than what they've spent.''

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Rotem Rosen, Alex Sapir, Zina Sapir

The family of a cabbie turned real estate billionaire is fighting a big bucks bid from a relative who wants a $102 million chunk of his estate.

The son-in-law of Tamir Sapir, who died in 2014 and was once worth $2 billion at the height of the real estate boom, has no right to the hefty payout, Sapir’s son Alex said in Manhattan Surrogate Court papers.

The son-in-law, Rotem Rosen, is in the midst of divorcing Tamir Sapir’s daughter, Zina, but says he’s owed the cash for work he did on the sale of Sapir Organization properties, including its biggest asset: 11 Madison Ave , which went for $2.6 billion in 2015.

Once CEO of the Sapir Organization, Rosen claims in court documents he was cut out after a “falling out” with Alex Sapir in 2017.

Reps for Tamir Sapir’s adult children slammed Rosen’s claim as a “sham” in court papers and said he’d already been paid for the work he did.

Sapir’s estate had sunk to a measly $600 million by the time he died, according to court records. He was once slammed with $150,000 in fines when the feds discovered a gross collection of elephant tusks, animal hides and barstools upholstered in python and anaconda skins about his Florida yacht.

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Incredible $100 million waterfront compound in kings point, ny.

tamir sapir yacht

Location:  26 Pond Road, Kings Point, NY

Square Footage: 60,000 (3 residences)

Bedrooms & Bathrooms: 13 bedrooms & 35 bathrooms (3 residences)

Price: $100,000,000

This incredible newly listed waterfront compound is located at 26 Pond Road in Kings Point, NY and is situated on 8 acres of land. It is the former estate of billionaire Tamir Sapir, who sold it in November 2013 for  $15,850,989.

It was built in 1928 and boasts a main house and 2 guest houses. There is total of over 60,000 square feet of luxurious living space with 13 bedrooms and 35 bathrooms.

Indoor features include health/fitness rooms, swimming pool, bowling alley, wine cellar and a casino.

Outdoor features include a gated entrance, 3 amazing water fountains, additional water features, statues, formal gardens, terraces, tennis court, swimming pool with spa and a yacht pier.

It is listed at $100,000,000 .

CLICK HERE FOR THE LISTING

CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO TOUR

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Alex Sapir

Alex Sapir is the President and CEO of The Sapir Organization. He is the successor to his late father, Tamir Sapir, founder of The Sapir Organization. During his career, Alex has overseen the entirety of the firm’s growth across more than $7B worth of portfolio assets. His responsibilities have included the acquisition, development, execution, and exit of major ventures across multiple asset classes, including commercial office, residential condominium, multi-family, and hospitality. Alex Sapir's remarkable success in the real estate industry is exemplified by his ventures with iconic properties such as 11 Madison, Arte Surfside, and Nomo Soho. With a keen eye for prime locations and an acute business sense, Sapir transformed these spaces into architectural and cultural landmarks.

Among his many successful initiatives, repositioning the company’s flagship holding at 11 Madison Avenue stands as a signature achievement. At more than 2.3M square feet and spanning an entire city block, Tamir Sapir purchased the building for $675M. Under Alex’s leadership, the property, previously occupied predominantly by Credit Suisse, was transformed to include Sony, William Morris Endeavor, and Yelp. Now containing a further diversified and world-class tenant roster culminating with the renewal of Credit Suisse, in 2015 Alex presided over the final sale of the property to SL Green for $2.6B, which would become the largest individual building sale in American history.

In 2014, Alex acquired Sapir Corp Ltd, a public reporting enterprise focused on ground-up development, new construction, and value-add opportunities. He serves as Chairman of the Board, and the company currently has more than 1.7M square feet of real estate, including Arte Surfside. The Nomo Soho Hotel and Miami 18. He employs an engaged leadership paradigm involving his participation in all business initiatives and the dedicated servicing of numerous partnerships while pursuing a consistent program of innovative design and architecture for all projects.

Under Alex’s vision and direction, Arte Surfside successfully attracted the most discerning luxury buyers in the world. With many hailing from the U.S. Northeast, the project was recognized globally for setting impressive new sales records, including executing a cryptocurrency penthouse transaction. At around $3,000 per square foot, Arte achieved the highest blended price per foot and the highest average cost per unit that has closed to date in any new development recorded in Miami Dade County and arguably Florida. Furthermore, with almost $225 million in total sales, Arte holds the highest gross sale price for a new boutique development in Miami. Alex plans to expand the exclusive Arte brand with projects in negotiations in the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East.

Alex continues the strong legacy of philanthropy started by his father and supports numerous charitable causes. His involvement and collaborations include the Make-a-Wish Foundation, where he created the Tamir Sapir Basketball Fund, St Jude Children’s Hospital, The American Cancer Society, the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, and Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.

Charles Hillock

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COMMENTS

  1. Tamir Sapir

    Tamir Sapir (born Temur Sepiashvili, Georgian: თემურ სეფიაშვილი; 1946/1947 - September 24, 2014) was a Georgian-born, Georgian-American businessman, real estate developer and investor. He was the founder of the Sapir Organization, a real estate investment firm based in New York City.Sapir originally made his fortune trading oil and fertilizers with the Soviet ...

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    Price: $100,000,000. This incredible newly listed waterfront compound is located at 26 Pond Road in Kings Point, NY and is situated on 8 acres of land. It is the former estate of billionaire Tamir Sapir, who sold it in November 2013 for $15,850,989. It was built in 1928 and boasts a main house and 2 guest houses.

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    Alex Sapir is the President and CEO of The Sapir Organization. He is the successor to his late father, Tamir Sapir, founder of The Sapir Organization. During his career, Alex has overseen the entirety of the firm's growth across more than $7B worth of portfolio assets. His responsibilities have included the acquisition, development, execution ...

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