A state Supreme Court judge last Monday issued a final foreclosure order against a Yorkville apartment building owned by Livorno Properties principals Yossi Zaga and Ben Zion Suky, setting the stage for a courthouse auction.

The five-story walkup rental building at 501½ East 83rd Street, which a Suky-backed entity called Wall Time Realty acquired in 2006 for $3.5 million, will be scheduled for auction by a court-appointed referee, but a specific date has not yet been set.

The lender, Glen Cove, N.Y.-based First Central Savings Bank originally filed suit in April 2009 alleging the borrowers failed to make monthly payments of $23,418 between December 2008 and March 2009 at the building, between York and East End avenues. The suit also alleges the borrowers took out a $3.25 million second mortgage in August 2008 with an entity called Express Service Forwarding, without the prior permission of the senior lender. [more]

From left: Ilan Bracha, Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto and 240 Riverside Boulevard (building photo credit: CityRealty)

A three-year old plan to convert a 2,700-square-foot retail space into a synagogue at the Heritage at Trump Place may have collapsed, but the parties involved are trying to save it. In May, Bank of America initiated $1.2 million in foreclosure proceedings against a rabbi-to-the-real-estate-stars, a top-selling residential broker and a developer involved in the synagogue plans. According to the complaint, filed May 23, Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto, Ilan Bracha, who runs the Manhattan office for Keller Williams Realty, and his partner in development deals at B+B Investment Group, Haim Binstock, defaulted on their loan for a portion of Heritage at Trump Place at 240 Riverside Boulevard at 70th Street.

“As of May 16, 2011, the principal balance due and owing under the terms of the note was $1,207,694.24,” the filing says. Payments due to BofA have not been made since January, according to the filing. All three men are cited as part of the LLC — Pinto Bracha & Binstock LLC — that is named on the lien, according to city records. But attorneys for Pinto, Bracha and Binstock from the firm Mitofsky Shapiro Neville & Hazen fired back late last month. [more]

Ben Zion Suky, the right-hand man of the real estate community’s influential Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto and a real estate developer himself, is linked to a bootleg porn video operation, according to the Jewish Daily Forward. A decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said Suky, through Direct Distributors of which he was a principal, bought thousands of counterfeit DVDs from a Montreal-based bootlegging operation and sold them out of a storefront on West 36th Street. These legal troubles come on the heels of a recent foreclosure suit against his 37-unit building at 215 East 81st Street. [Forward]

A Brooklyn investor who jumped to his death from his 19th-floor Jumeirah Essex House apartment earlier this month was ensnared in a slew of real estate-related disputes and had a number of questionable business partners, according to the Daily News. While the medical examiner ruled Solomon Obstfeld’s death a suicide, friends are skeptical that the extremely religious, Bobover Hasidic Jew and father of five would have — or could have — killed himself by jumping over a nine-foot wall on his terrace with no chair and no witnesses.

Suicide is forbidden under Jewish law, and his family has told the community that Obstfeld had a heart attack. At the time of his death, Obstfeld was trying to sell the 3,300-square-foot Essex House home, a combination of three units, for $6.5 million. He was also feuding with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto, a powerful and popular spiritual advisor within the real estate and business community, whose sweetheart lease deal for one of Obstfeld’s other, vacant Essex House units had recently soured. Meanwhile, Obstfeld recently won an ugly legal battle over Prospect Heights’ Hello Living condo project. [NYDN] 

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A Brooklyn investor who jumped to his death from his 19th-floor Jumeirah Essex House apartment earlier this month was ensnared in a slew of real estate-related disputes and had a number of questionable business partners, according to the Daily News. While the medical examiner ruled Solomon Obstfeld’s death a suicide, friends are skeptical that the extremely religious, Bobover Hasidic Jew and father of five would have — or could have — killed himself by jumping over a nine-foot wall on his terrace with no chair and no witnesses.

Suicide is forbidden under Jewish law, and his family has told the community that Obstfeld had a heart attack. At the time of his death, Obstfeld was trying to sell the 3,300-square-foot Essex House home, a combination of three units, for $6.5 million. He was also feuding with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto, a powerful and popular spiritual advisor within the real estate and business community, whose sweetheart lease deal for one of Obstfeld’s other, vacant Essex House units had recently soured. Meanwhile, Obstfeld recently won an ugly legal battle over Prospect Heights’ Hello Living condo project. [NYDN] 

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From left: developer Yair Levy, broker-developer Ilan Bracha, developer Serge Hyoda (photo 1), Bracha, Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto (photo 2) at last night’s fundraiser held at 15 Central Park West (photo 3) for Shuva Israel West Synagogue (rendering in photo 4). Click image for larger version. (Photo credit for first three photos: Joseph Ben Joseph Fine Art Photography & Video)

Developers Serge Hoyda and Yair Levy as well as Nello restaurateur Nello Balan gathered last night in the sixth-floor event space at 15 Central Park South to kick off fundraising for a new West Side synagogue. Prudential Douglas Elliman broker and B+B Investment Group co-founder Ilan Bracha and partner Haim Binstock held the first annual fundraiser for Shuva Israel West Synagogue, which B+B plans to build in the ground-floor retail space of the condominium Heritage at Trump Place at 240 Riverside Boulevard at the corner of 72nd Street. The 2,600-square-foot space, which B+B purchased in 2007 with the intention of building the synagogue, will be able to accommodate 150 members, said Levi Krinsky, project director at B&B. The company plans to begin building out the space, slated to cost roughly $400,000, after Passover in two weeks and open before Rosh Hashana Sept. 9, he said.
Shuva Israel West Synagogue provides a second Manhattan space for followers of Israel-based Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto, a rabbi-to-the-real estate community, who was the featured speaker last night. Real estate folks consult Pinto when it comes to business and personal matters. [more]

At left: Gaia managing partners Amir Yerushalmi and Danny Friedman and Park River Properties’ Lenny Sporn and Mickey Roth at their new office opening. At right: Lenny Sporn with Rabbi Yishayahu Yosef Pinto at the office.

It’s been less than three months since Prudential Douglas Elliman powerbrokers Mickey Roth and Lenny Sporn departed the firm to start their own venture, but the Roth-Sporn brand appears to be holding strong, even under their new company name, Park River Properties.

The freshly-minted firm, which organizes foreign buyers into purchase groups for bulk deals in new development condominiums in New York City, is planning a slew of international outposts for its forthcoming expansion. In addition to the existing Park River office in Tel Aviv, Israel, a branch is coming to Rome next month, Sporn said. He is hoping to open a total of five new overseas offices over the course of the year, and is eyeing Japan and India for two of them.

Park River, which launched in December as part of one-year-old Gaia Real Estate, a distressed investment firm, also moved into a permanent U.S. headquarters this week with Gaia and Gaia’s latest acquisition, Vision Property Management, at the Carnegie Hall Tower at 152 West 57th Street. Park River currently employs 15 agents in New York and also has plans to open two more Manhattan branches over the next six months. [more]