The REAL billionaire’s row: Financier goes to war with his NYC co-op board for ‘being run like the MOB’ as he accuses it of ‘extortion, bribery and racketeering’ under the noses of residents like Michael J Fox, a Rockefeller scion and Wall Street tycoons

A legal war has erupted among the residents of a 5th Avenue co-op that is home to some of New York’s wealthiest citizens.

A couple who lived in the antebellum building at 93rd and 5th have a dramatic lawsuit against the cooperative board, which accuses the former president and members of running the building like a gang.

Elizabeth Sawyer and her husband Clifford Press, owners of a twelve-room apartment overlooking the park, allege that “a racket has been operating in plain sight and with impunity on a small stretch of Upper Fifth Avenue for more than a decade.”

“Hidden behind the limestone façade of a neoclassical Museum Mile lies a corrupt group of entrenched co-op directors who exploit the company through their criminal and other evil deeds,” the indictment reads.

The couple’s goal is to manage 1120 5th Ave. to drive away. After a history of incidents where they identified a corrupt one, including the board hiring the then-president’s cousin for a $500,000 elevator upgrade operation.

The A lawsuit was filed last Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court and aims to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act to achieve its goal.

“Racketeering enterprises are not limited to the docks of Brooklyn or the markets of the Bronx,” reads the opening sentence of the 47-page complaint.

The couple has named 13 current and former members of the board of directors as defendants, including ex-president John Breglio, a lawyer turned Broadway producer who worked with the original creators of “A Chorus Line.”

Residents of the chic Museum Mile building include Mary Morgan, daughter of former New York Governor and US Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Steve Greenberg, son of Jewish baseball star Hank ‘The Hebrew Hammer’ Greenberg, and actor Micheal J. Fox, who along with his wife owns one of the building’s 44 units.

Press, 70, told The Daily Beast that it is mainly the residents of the ‘B and C’ side who sit on the 11-person cooperative board.

“They’re cheaper apartments,” he said of the owners of apartments selling for between $5 million and $10 million. His park-oriented unit is valued at at least $10 million.

According to StreetEasy, a four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment on the eighth floor in the building overlooking the park recently sold for almost $14 million.

Moreover, he said, he is shocked “by the extent of the venality and self-dealing” taking place within his building’s bureaucracy.

Among other claims in the lawsuit, Press and Sawyer allege that Breglio pushed for a “wasteful and unnecessary” elevator repair project during his tenure that cost half a million dollars.

The project contract was awarded to his cousin’s company in 2018 and, more importantly, would not meet its main goal: modernizing the elevators, which now stop working so often that they have become a danger to families and children, according to the project office. business suit.

Additionally, the lawsuit details a problem experienced by residents Larry and Anouk Berger, who sued the building in 2017 after leaks caused water and mold damage to their newly purchased apartment.

They say the board has handled the matter with “contempt and hostility.”

During a subsequent dispute, the board apparently “falsely accused (the Bergers) of ‘making up’ stories” – a claim that was “immediately refuted” with “unequivocal evidence.”

The board ultimately paid the Bergers a $300,000 settlement for their apparent misconduct, with then-President Breglio allegedly pressuring the couple to return to the building.

The Bergers did not comment on Sawyer and Press’ lawsuit.

Breglio, who became president in 2012, promptly began a “takeover of the Board of Directors,” which included strengthening his “core group (of loyalists)” and purging “any directors who doubted their support.”

The Beast reports that when reached by phone, Breglio said he “didn’t want to talk about the lawsuit in any way because, for obvious reasons, it’s being handled by the lawyers.”

Michael Pensabene, an attorney for the board, has since responded to the lawsuit, calling it a “frivolous” and “meritless lawsuit brought by a disgruntled co-op resident for the sole purpose of harassing her neighbors, who voluntarily serve the building.” the board of the cooperative,” said the New York Post.

“This is a blatant abuse of process and we are confident that this frivolous complaint will be dismissed immediately,” he added.

According to the documents, there have been problems between Sawyer, Press and the board for years.

The board tried to kick the couple out in March 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to no avail.

The body alleged that Sawyer blocked an emergency exit with water jugs she kept in the stairwell, and that Press kicked another resident’s dog, causing blood to flow.

The couple says the dog incident is a “deliberately false” claim and “in fact, Mr. Press is known in the building for his devotion and affection for dogs.”

The finance executive, who met his wife when they both attended Harvard Business School, owns a Jack Russell terrier named Willa.

Among a handful of other legal skirmishes, Press notably resigned as CEO at investment firm Acadia Research Corp. in 2022. due to an internal evidence showing that he had misused company funds for personal matters, including charitable donations in his own name.

Press sued the company and was awarded a $1.25 million settlement last September.

Residents have reportedly been prevented from speaking to the press by the board about the unfolding lawsuit.

But that doesn’t stop a small handful of people from remaining anonymous.

“We are literally being told not to talk to you, that there is nothing to see and that this will all be dismissed, which is categorically a lie,” one resident told The Beast. “Many board members seem to believe they can fool the shareholders.”

Another said Press’s campaign “is not the work of a madman.”

“My personal opinion is that this is a very proud, very intelligent man who they have humiliated,” they added.

Another resident, Stan Stein, whose wife Linda was previously treasurer of the board, said that “some of the things he (Pers) says are actually not entirely unjustified. But I think the way he says them, he gets very caught up in the emotions and the accusations for which there is little or no substance.”

In 2022, Stein sent a note to a board member about the way his wife was treated by then-President Breglio.

‘I cannot sit idly by and watch in horror the verbal abuse of Linda, by John Breglio. This just isn’t going to work, as I’m sure you understand,” he wrote. Linda resigned as treasurer in 2021.

Sawyer and Press are seeking damages in an unspecified amount, as well as attorneys’ fees.