The joint venture that developed The Greens at Cherry Lawn in New Rochelle has sued a partner for $5 million for allegedly stealing funds.
WN Weaver Street III LLC has filed a complaint in Westchester Supreme Court against Theodore Weinberg and three of his companies. The complaint does not disclose the name or names of the joint venture individuals who brought the lawsuit.
“As a result of an investigation,” the complaint states, “it was learned that Weinberg personally siphoned millions of dollars from the project.”
Weinberg”™s attorney, Leonard Benowich, responded with a motion to dismiss the case. The charges are barred by the statute of limitations because the alleged wrongdoing happened more than three years ago, he argued, or are legally insufficient, duplicative or not recognized by New York law.
WN Weaver Street was formed in 2006 to build and sell multimillion-dollar homes on Weaver Street at the northern end of New Rochelle near Scarsdale.
Weinberg, of Mamaroneck, conceived the project and managed day-to-day operations until last May, when SIR Cherry Lawn Associates LLC, a Delaware company, exercised its right to replace him as the managing member.
The “associates” of SIR Cherry Lawn are not identified.
WN Weaver”™s new management accuses Weinberg of absconding with the proceeds of home sales, creating false requisitions to a lender, falsifying bank statements, concocting phony invoices, bouncing checks, stealing construction equipment, charging homebuyers for work that was never completed, failing to pay real estate taxes and using partnership funds to pay personal expenses.
From 2007 to 2014, for example, he allegedly caused home buyers to make millions of dollars in payments to his Andrea Lane Associates Corp., instead of to the joint venture, for extra features.
In 2013 and 2014, according to the complaint, Weinberg invoiced the joint venture for $472,408 for work that was not done.
In 2018, he purportedly “duped” the buyers of a home into signing a contract with his Cherry Lawn Development LLC for $388,030 of extras that were included in the base price.
Also in 2018, he allegedly submitted invoices to the joint venture from a company known as East End Co. The invoices were not genuine, the complaint states, and the funds were used to pay a debt owed by Weinberg”™s Hartsdale Development LLC to East End.
WN Weaver accuses its former founder and managing partner of fraud, conversion and breach of fiduciary duty.
Benowich argues that all of the causes of action must be dismissed.
“In an effort to spice up its fact-bereft complaint,” Benowich argues, “Weaver has resorted to larding the complaint with allegations of ”˜fraud”™ and ”˜fraudulent intent,”™ even though Weaver has failed to allege that it was defrauded in any way.”
WN Weaver is represented by Manhattan attorneys Donald F. Schneider and Andrew V. Achiron.
