Bernard Madoff

Bernard Madoff’s West Palm Beach mansion at 410 N. Lake Way closed today for $5.65 million, Joseph Guccione, U.S. Marshal for the South District of New York, announced. Originally listed Sept. 1, 2009 for $8.49 million, brokers Burt Minkoff and Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group were most recently asking $6.5 million. The Wall Street Journal previously reported that Sotheby’s International Realty represented the buyer, whose identity remains unknown. “This sale marks the final disposition of all the properties related to the Bernard L. Madoff case,” said Roland Ubaldo, the Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal. “We will continue to dispose of the remaining assets with the goal of receiving maximum gain for the victims of this crime.” TRD

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From the South Florida website: After one year and $2 million worth of price cuts, Bernard Madoff’s Palm Beach mansion has gone into contract, according to the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Madoff’s other properties — a waterfront home in Montauk, N.Y. and a penthouse on New York City’s Upper East Side — the five-bedroom, 8,800-square-foot house at 410 North Lake Way had been languishing on the market, with brokers calling it overpriced and a probable teardown. Originally listed for $8.49 million last September, brokers Burt Minkoff and Jim McCann of the Corcoran Group were most recently asking $6.5 million for the home on behalf of the U.S. Marshals Service, which will use the proceeds of the sale to return money to victims of Madoff’s $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

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Great Neck, LI-based property owner Parkoff Organization purchased an Upper East Side mixed-use building at 1248-1250 Lexington Avenue for $10 million yesterday, a broker on the deal said. The five-story building at the corner of Lexington and 84th Street has 24 mostly rent-stabilized apartments and six commercial units, including one that is home to Mimi’s Pizza Kitchen. City property records listed the seller as Sussex Associates. Adam Parkoff, principal with the buyer, said his firm bought it because of the steady residential and retail demand on the Upper East Side. [more]

Bernard Madoff and his former penthouse apartment at 133 East 64th Street

The couple who bought Bernard Madoff’s Upper East Side penthouse duplex loved the rooftop terrace so much that they decided to look past the co-op’s seamy history. “There just weren’t a lot of penthouses on the market with a lot of outdoor space,” buyer Patsy Kahn, the wife of toy magnate Al Kahn, told the Post. “He was worried about the karma, but I just loved the terrace,” she said.

The Madoff pad was asking $8.9 million, a $1 million price cut off its original listing price and a steal compared to the Time Warner Center condo the Kahns currently reside in, for which they’re asking $33 million. They purchased the 4,000-square-foot apartment at 133 East 64th Street in February for roughly $8 million. Proceeds from the sale will be used to reimburse victims of Madoff’s massive Ponzi scheme.

The Kahns, whose fortune comes from Al’s Cabbage Patch Dolls and Pokémon empires, have been approved by the co-op board, formerly headed by Madoff himself, and are planning to renovate. [Post] [more]

From left: Nouriel Roubini, Sheila Bair, Bernie Madoff, Jamie Dimon

Nouriel Roubini ranks first among “scientists and thinkers” on Time magazine’s list of the most influential people of 2009, but columnist Joel Stein begs to differ. “You predicted the housing bubble before it happened?” he wrote. “Well, that might make you the least influential person in the entire world. I predicted the Yankees need a set-up man. I guess I’m an influencer too.” Also of note on Time’s annual list: CEO Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, No. 13 among “builders and titans;” the FDIC’s Sheila Bair and Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff, coming in at 14th and 20th, respectively, on the same list; and architects Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio of Diller Scofidio + Renfro, 10th among “artists and entertainers.” [more]

From left: James Dimon, whose firm JPMorgan Chase owes $300,000; Crowne Plaza JFK, which owes $944,491; the Holiday Inn JFK, which owes $852,239; Gordon DuGan, whose firm W. P. Carey & Co. owes $464,000 (Dimon photo source: Public Intelligence)

Tax debtors beware: New York State is calling you out.

Last Friday, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance went live on its Web site with lists of the top 250 individual and corporate tax debtors in the state.

The individual debtors range from Onandaga County resident Bradley Cooke, who owes $381,509, to Irving Bilzinsky, the former Scores strip clubs owner from Brooklyn who topped out the list with more than $15 million outstanding taxes from between 2007 and 2009. Among businesses, Gui Hong Chen, of Queens, took the top spot with more than $19 million in unpaid corporate taxes.

This week, The Real Deal combed through the newly-public documents to find the worst offenders in New York City real estate.

They include luxury broker Agnes Nolan and her late husband, who owe more than $850,000 in personal income taxes, a subsidiary of real estate investment firm W.P. Carey, which has a warrant out for roughly $464,000, and JPMorgan Chase Bank, which owes upwards of $300,000 (see the full list after the jump).

Perhaps the highest-profile individuals listed were Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff (No. 69, with $984,281 in sales taxes) and celebrity fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz (No. 83, with $503,740 in personal income taxes outstanding). Earlier this week, Leibovitz narrowly avoided emergency sales of her four New York homes — three Greenwich Village brownstones and part of the Astor family’s estate in Rhinebeck, N.Y. — when a Los Angeles private equity firm specializing in distressed real estate agreed to take on her millions of dollars in debt. [more]

From the March issue: Real estate scams are the crime du jour, it seems. In the 2000s, the era of easy credit and lax lending standards created a compelling motive for fraud that legal experts say is still being uncovered. Even now, with prices down from the peak, New York City real estate is pricey enough to tempt would-be criminals. Adam Hochfelder, for example, lost his status as a charismatic wunderkind of Manhattan real estate in 2008, when he was arrested and accused of stealing more than $17 million from banks, friends and family through fraudulent loans and a fictitious real estate venture. Then, last month, he was indicted again, this time on charges that he stole some $2.5 million from business associates and friends by leading them to believe they were investing in deals to acquire the Sagamore Hotel on Lake George in upstate New York and the Peaks Resort and Spa in Telluride, Colo. Now, The Real Deal dissects his crime. [more]

Bernard Madoff and the Montauk house

While notorious Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff’s Montauk $9.4 million beachfront property has been long-sold, to Vornado’s Steven Roth in September, the furnishings inside remain owner-less. But buyers who want to own a piece of Madoff’s former East End glory now have their chance. The furniture, utensils and other assorted knick-knacks are hitting the auction block this spring, either in April or May, at the county public safety academy in Parsippany, NJ, according to James Plousis, a U.S. Marshall for New Jersey. “We want to run an auction for as little cost as possible, so that just about every penny we make can go back to the victims,” Plousis said.

Judi Desiderio, Town & Country CEO, and images of the Montauk waterfront

East End brokerage Town & Country Real Estate is opening a new Montauk office and expanding its Bridgehampton digs to a larger space, the company announced today. Town & Country CEO and Founder Judi Desiderio said she hopes to open the new Montauk outpost, located in a storefront at 764 Main Street, in time for St. Patrick’s Day. The 1,000-square-foot space, formerly occupied by an antiques store, brings Town & Country’s total to eight offices in the Hamptons and North Fork, she said. “It’s a perfect time for us to grow,” she said. “We’ve had terrific agents in Montauk working out of East Hampton, but Montauk is really its own market. People who want Montauk will not accept anything but Montauk.” The picturesque ocean-side fishing and surfing village has made waves recently as the site of Ponzi-schemer Bernard Madoff’s former summer home, which now belongs to Steven Roth, chairman of Vornado Realty Trust. [more]

Bernard Madoff and his former penthouse apartment at 133 East 64th Street

The $8.9 million home formerly owned by Bernard Madoff is chump change
for toy executive Al Kahn, compared to the home he has just listed.
The children’s entertainment juggernaut responsible for toys like the
Cabbage Patch Kids and Pokemon has put his 4,350-square-foot condo in
the Time Warner Center at 25 Columbus Circle on the market for $33.6
million, following his purchase of the infamous 4,000-square-foot
Madoff duplex at the corner of Lexington Avenue and 64th Street, which went into contract earlier this month. Time
Warner Center mainstays Elizabeth Lee Sample and Brenda Powers of
Brown Harris Stevens have the listing. [more]