An 88-year-old widow who claims she paid a Mount Kisco architect nearly $2.5 million over an 11-year span to remodel a Manhattan condo has accused the firm and owner of elder abuse.
Beverly Bavly, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, accused Frank Pizzurro Jr. and Frank Pizzurro Jr. Architecture & Interiors & Consulting of deceptive acts and practices, fraud, malpractice and unjust enrichment, in a complaint filed on March 28 in Westchester Supreme Court.
Pizzurro’s acts and practices, according to the complaint, “amount to financial elder abuse.”
“FPA has an impeccable reputation with over 20 years in the business, and wholeheartedly dispute these abhorrent allegations,” Pizzurro stated in an email.Â
Bavly says she bought three units in a Hell’s Kitchen condominium in 2012, with the intention of renovating them and selling them for a profit. She hired Pizzurro, who has offices in Chelsea, Manhattan and in Bedford, to represent her.
The project was supposed to be completed in 270 days, the complaint states. But very little work was done, Bavly says, due to a dispute with another condo owner that stopped construction shortly after it began.
But from January 2013 to April 2024, more than 11 years, she continued to pay the architect, according to the complaint. Most of the checks, totaling $2,448,912, were mailed to Pizzurro’s Mount Kisco home address.
Pizzurro allegedly told Bavly that work was continuously being done and he was reaching a resolution with other owners in the condo who were resisting the project.
“These statements were materially false,” the complaint states, “and were made for the purpose of keeping Mrs. Bavly paying exhorbitant fees … when such fees were not earned at all or very little work had in fact been done.”
In May 2024, Bavly’s attorney advised her to stop paying the architect.
Around the same time, Barami Construction Corp., the general contractor, notified Bavly that the project had been stopped because invoices had not been paid. Then Barami demanded $512,736 in a mediation case.
Bavly says her records show $994,613 in payments for Barami. All but one of the checks were made payable to Pizzurro and were meant to be forwarded to the contractor.
Bavly’s attorney asked Pizzurro to attend a mediation hearing to defend her, according to the complaint, but he failed to appear and she had to settle the dispute for $275,000.
Bavly is demanding $2.7 million in monetary damages. She also is asking the court to refer the matter to the Westchester County district attorney “for investigation and possible prosecution.”
