A bank that funded a former Mount Vernon construction firm for more than a decade claims now that the contractor’s assertions of profitability were an illusion.
M&T Bank, of Buffalo, is demanding nearly $31.5 million from Commodore Construction Corp. and owner Gerald Boyle, in two lawsuits filed last month in Westchester Supreme Court.
“Commodore’s house of cards began to topple” this year, one of the complaints states, when the firm revealed that years of financial statements “could not be relied on.”
M&T says it believes Commodore’s began to falter in early 2021, after co-founder and co-owner Eilish Loughran died. From 2021 through 2024, according to one of the lawsuits, Commodore lost more than $70 million and concealed its true condition.
M&T began working with Commodore in 2012, funding a $6 million line of credit that grew to $25 million; a $2.4 million mortgage that grew to more than $3.6 million for its property in Mount Vernon; credit cards; an equipment lease; and a term loan.
M&T says it realized in mid-2025 that Commodore was in trouble. Since then, it has allegedly discovered fabricated financial records that gave “the misleading impression that Commodore was a successful company when, in fact, it was distressed and losing money.”
From 2021 to 2023, as the bank extended more credit, Commodore’s financial statements allegedly showed profits when in fact millions a dollars a year were being lost.
On Aug. 9, a forensic accountant told M&T that years of audited financial statements were inaccurate. The accountant determined that Commodore lost about $70 million from 2021 through 2024. It “potentially diverted” $30 million to $40 million in cash to 19 entities affiliated with Boyle and others. It owed more than $36 million in payroll taxes and union dues.
Parties related to Commodore owe the firm more than $27 million, according to one of the lawsuits.
By August, Commodore could no longer cover its payroll. On Sept. 2, the forensic accountant was no longer being paid and stopped working. On Sept. 30, Commodore went out of business.
M&T is demanding nearly $27.6 million in principal and fees for the various loans, and nearly $3.9 million in a separate mortgage foreclosure case.
A former senior project manager, Mark Dutton, filed a class action lawsuit against Commodore on behalf of 400-some workers, on Oct. 1. He alleges that the firm failed to notify workers about imminent closure  within 60 to 90 days, as required by federal and state laws. He is demanding an unspecified sum for months of unpaid compensation and retirement benefits.
Efforts to find contact information for Boyle and Commodore, to ask for their sides of the story, were unsuccessful. Commodore’s attorney in the workers’ lawsuit, Gerasimos D. Liberatos, did not reply to a message.
