Two former chief officers of Duane Reade have been convicted of fraud after a two-month long trial, in which one of the city’s biggest retail brokerage firms, Winick Realty Group, played a central role, according to the United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York. Former CEO Anthony Cuti and one-time CFO William Tennant were both convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud, in connection with a five-year-long scheme to falsely increase income and lower expenses, while misleading investors. Tennant got a $2.8 million stock gain in 2001 after work… [more]

From left: Zelnik and Winick

The prosecution is scheduled to deliver its final statement this morning in the federal securities fraud case against two former Duane Reade executives who are accused of using bogus real estate deals throu… [more]

From left: Cory Zelnik, former president at Winick Realty, and Jeff Winick, CEO of Winick Realty

The state agency that licenses real estate brokers opened an investigation this week into two of the city’s top retail brokers based on court testimony from one of them saying that about a decade ago they accepted a $… [more]

Prominent Manhattan landlord Jeffrey Sutton took the witness stand earlier this week and testified about a deal prosecutors say was part of a scheme by Duane Reade executives to use bogus real estate deals to inflate the company’s profits. Sutton, an owner of more than 100 buildings with a focus in retail, explained how he served as an unwitting conduit for the Duane Reade executives, who are on trial in Manhattan federal court for attempting to artificially boost their public company’s short-term earnings with these transactions.

The landlord told the jury Tuesday about negotiations between his company and Duane Reade concerning a 2001 deal related to a property on Staten Island…. [more]

The ongoing federal trial of two former Duane Reade executives on
charges that they misled investors through bogus real estate
transactions may sully the reputation of one of the city’s leading
retail brokerage firms even though it faces no charges, real estate insiders say. Winick Realty, its CEO Jeff Winick and former president
Cory Zelnik have not been charged in the case but some of their
business deals are under scrutiny. “Once an allegation is made and
it goes through the media sound chamber, people who were only partially
paying attention will have it stick in their cranium,” said real estate
attorney Lawrence Lenzner, partner at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler,
who is not involved in the trial. “Even if it is 100 percent false,
enough people have heard it, his name has been disparaged and it can
take years to recover from that.”… [more]

The defense in the federal trial of two former Duane Reade executives is painting a murky picture of two of the city’s leading retail brokers as the trial entered its second week. The brokers, who are not charged in the case, acted on a few deals with
Duane Reade as both landlord and broker. In addition, the trial has
painted a picture of a retail leasing environment in which landlords in a
few instances paid brokers in cash to avoid taxes, including one
instance of a suitcase filled with cash, though such cash dealings
didn’t occur in connection with the Duane Reade deals. Defense attorney Reid Weingarten, representing one of the two Duane
Reade executives accused of orchestrating sham real estate deals with
affiliates of Winick Realty Group, said that while the deals were not
bogus arrangements, they were pieces in a cloudy interconnected world
where payments flew back and forth between limited liability companies.
… [more]

From left: Former Winick Realty President Cory Zelnik, former Duane Reade location at 4 Times Square, and current location at 225 Broadway (building photo source: PropertyShark)

In his second day on the witness stand, former Winick Realty Group President Cory Zelnik described additional allegedly fraudulent leasing transactions with drug store chain Duane Reade, this time at various city locations including one on lower Broadway damaged in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and another at the site of the Durst Organization’s One Bryant Park in Midtown.

Zelnik took the stand for his second day of testimony yesterday in a case brought by the United States Attorney in Manhattan against two former executives of drug store chain Duane Reade, who are accused of multiple crimes including securities fraud, which involved allegedly bogus real estate deals. Zelnik is not charged in the case, but is testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution for his participation in the allegedly fraudulent deals. The defendants Anthony Cuti, former Duane Reade CEO, and William Tennant, a former CFO and senior vice president, who later served as an outside consultant for the drug store chain, are accused of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, filing false quarterly and annual reports, and other charges. They each face up to 20 years in prison…. [more]

Former Winick Realty Group president Cory Zelnik says he paid for an expired lease at 1412 Broadway after moving Duane Reade to 1430 Broadway (building photos’ source: PropertyShark)

Former Winick Realty Group President Cory Zelnik testified yesterday as the first witness in the federal government’s securities fraud conspiracy trial of two former executives of the New York-based pharmacy Duane Reade. Zelnik told the jury that he and his former partner Jeff Winick, CEO of Winick Realty, engaged in a series of allegedly bogus transactions with Duane Reade that had no economic value, starting in about 2000. Neither Zelnik, Winick nor his company are named in the indictment, and Winick is not facing any charges. Zelnik agreed to testify on a grant of immunity from prosecution. Zelnik said he and Winick were partners in a real estate investment company called Danielle Equity Holding that in February 2001 paid Duane Reade a total of $806,000 for the right to control leases in eight properties valued at between $63,000 and $170,000 per lease although in fact the leases allegedly no longer had value. Zelnik and Winnick paid the money, he said, because they expected to get paid back and remain working with Duane Reade…. [more]

From left: Cory Zelnik and defense attorney Reid Weingarten

The government and defense laid out their arguments in opening statements this morning in the trial of two former Duane Reade executives accused of pumping up share value including by creating allegedly bogus real estate transactions between the pharmacy and its primary broker Winick Realty Group. Assistant United States Attorney Jonathan Streeter told the jury that the deals between Duane Reade and Winick and other landlords and developers including Jeff Sutton, president of Wharton Properties — were bogus. “All this was done for Duane Reade to claim higher profits than they really had,” he said. Former Duane Reade CEO Anthony Cuti and former CFO William Tennant are facing multiple charges including securities fraud, filing false quarterly and annual reports, and filing false books…. [more]

From left: Cory Zelnik of Zelnik & Company; Jeff Winick of Winick Realty,
former Duane Reade locations at 304 Madison Avenue, 360 Park Avenue
(building photo source: PropertyShark)

The hidden world of Manhattan retail brokerage will be thrust under a spotlight during the federal trial that opened today with jury selection against two former executives of Duane Reade. The criminal case against the former executives, Anthony Cuti and William Tennant, in Manhattan federal court hinges on the prosecution’s claims that complex leasing transactions, most involving Jeff Winick’s Winick Realty Group, were fraudulently accounted for. The trial began today with jury selection and tomorrow the first witnesses are expected to be called, beginning with former Winick Realty president Cory Zelnik, now CEO of Zelnik & Company, a legal source said. The world of retail leasing is far less transparent than office leasing, with the terms of many deals kept private by the parties, retail brokers say. Prosecutors charged in an October 2008 indictment that the former Duane Reade executives set up bogus real estate deals and vendor transactions to pump up income for earnings reports for the publicly traded company, between December 2000 and June 2005…. [more]