A New Rochelle man claims he helped his brother revive a Mount Vernon construction business by securing lucrative government contracts, only to be betrayed and deprived of his share of the profits.
Antoine Zihenni sued Albert N. Zihenni, Pelham, for $2 million, May 26 in Westchester Supreme Court, claiming he is entitled to half of the net profits from New York City contracts awarded to NorthE Group Inc. from 2011 to 2016.
Attempts to reach Albert Zihenni for his side of the story were unsuccessful.
According to Antoine, he had procured and managed public contracts for more than 20 years.
Albert founded NorthE in 2001 but had failed to grow beyond small, private projects, Antoine says. So when his brother asked him to invest in the company in 2010, they struck a deal.
Antoine would secure contracts on public projects and he would be paid half of the net profits.
If Antoine failed to line up any public projects, “he would not be paid” and “would gain absolutely nothing.”
From 2011 through 2017, NorthE won seven $1 million-plus construction contracts from New York City.
In 2013, for example, the city construction department awarded NorthE a contract on the Flushing Town Hall interior-exterior upgrade. In 2017 the parks department awarded a contract for reconstruction of a comfort station in Marcus Garvey Park, Manhattan.
Antoine says he single-handedly secured the contracts and managed the jobs to completion. He also claims that he invested $550,000 in the company and used his credit worthiness to get the required surety bonds for the jobs.
The projects netted $3 million in profits, according to the complaint, but Antoine received nothing.
When he demanded his share, the complaint states, Albert insisted that the deal did not require immediate payment and said he was using the profits to reinvest in NorthE.
Inevitably, the complaint states, the brothers’ relationship “turned sour.”
In January 2018, Antoine was fired.
Then, Antoine says, he discovered that his share of profits had been diverted. Albert and his wife, Emilie Semionato, allegedly set up three limited liability companies and paid $360,000 to buy property at and near NorthE’s base on South Fulton Avenue, Mount Vernon.
A fourth LLC was used to buy a unit in Marbury Corners condominium in Pelham for $825,000, to use as their residence.
In 2017 Albert issued ten NorthE checks totaling $250,000 to one of the LLCs to rent equipment for the Pelham home and then leased the same equipment back to NorthE, according to the complaint, “essentially to pay himself and line his own pockets.”
Antoine is demanding $2 million from Albert, his sister-in-law, NorthE and the four LLCs, and for a levy and attachment on the properties they bought.
He is represented by Edgewater, New Jersey attorney Peter Y. Lee.
