Jeff Berkowitz’s ex-CFO/COO alleges he was fired over Hitler photo

A former top executive for Jeffrey Berkowitz’s firm alleges he was unfairly terminated after he posted a photo of Adolf Hitler on Facebook, according to a recently filed lawsuit. 

Now David Singer, ex-CFO and ex-COO for Coconut Grove-based Berkowitz Development Group, is seeking to collect $716,000 in unpaid salary and benefits he alleges he is owed. Singer filed his July 7 lawsuit against his former employer in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. 

“Mr. Singer’s allegations are without merit,” Berkowitz told The Real Deal. “And we do not comment on personnel matters.” 

Singer’s attorney, Scott Dimond, did not respond to an email requesting comment.

Founded by Berkowitz in 1985, his eponymous firm specializes in retail real estate development, and built Dadeland Station in Kendall, Aventura Commons in Aventura and Fifth & Alton in Miami Beach. Earlier this year, Berkowitz Development took its first plunge into the industrial sector when the company acquired 19 acres in Homestead for $6.7 million. Berkowitz Development is planning a 400,000-square-foot self-storage and distribution center. 

For about a decade, Berkowitz was also planning to build SkyRise Miami, a $430 million tie clip-shaped observation tower that would rise 1,000 feet next to Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami. But in 2021, Berkowitz canceled the project due to the pandemic. 

Singer went to work for Berkowitz in 1997 and didn’t have any issues with his boss until April, when he evoked the Nazi Fuhrer in a fight over a Muscovy duck invasion in the town of Palmetto Bay, according to his lawsuit. 

Singer, a Palmetto Bay resident and former town councilmember, “was deeply offended” by town officials using the words “final solution” to address the removal of ducks that had become a nuisance. Singer, who is Jewish, along with Berkowitz, posted on a Facebook page he manages that “final solution” was the same phrase employed by Nazis to describe murdering six million Jews during the Holocaust, the lawsuit states. 

Singer also posted an image of Hitler in a Nazi uniform and a swastika armband that he subsequently took down. Singer, the son of Holocaust survivors, was trying to make a point that the town council “was wrong to employ the rhetoric of Adolf Hitler when addressing its policy toward the local duck population,” the lawsuit states. 

However, Berkowitz informed Singer that “he was embarrassed by the post” and “because he feared that he would be the subject of bad publicity, or being ‘canceled’ as he put it,” the developer fired his CFO/COO, the complaint alleges. 

Singer alleges that posting the Hitler photo did not constitute terminating him for “good cause.” His conduct also did not rise to “the level of criminality, dishonesty, or gross dereliction of duty as an employee,” the lawsuit states. 

Since he was not terminated for any of the aforementioned reasons, he is entitled to two years of his $352,000 base salary and $12,000, which represents a $500 a month car allowance for a period of 24 months, Singer alleges.