A New York City-based real estate attorney is suing celebrity broker Ryan Serhant, alleging he jilted her of her full referral commission in a Fisher Island deal with Stoli Vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler.
The attorney, Natalia Sishodia, is demanding $455,000 and a jury trial, court documents show. According to the complaint and an attachment, Sishodia signed a referral agreement with Serhant, whose firm brokered the sale of the Fisher Island home, in April 2024.
Sishodia, who heads her namesake firm in New York City, alleges that Serhant owed her 25 percent of the $840,000 gross commission, which equates to $210,000. She alleges he only paid her $105,000, citing an amended agreement. Her complaint, filed in July in the Supreme Court of the State of New York in New York County, names Serhant and seven of his companies as defendants.
The $455,000 accounts for the additional $105,000 Sishodia claims she is owed, as well as $350,000 in damages.
Attorneys for Sishodia declined to comment. Serhant’s attorney, Andrew Lieb, in an email confirmed the broker is seeking to dismiss the case and “will let the papers speak for themselves.”
The dispute revolves around Shefler’s $21 million sale of the home at 6915 Valencia Drive on Fisher Island in Miami Beach in December. Guilherme Federico purchased the property. Serhant agent Mariana Niro represented both the buyer and the seller in the deal for the 9,400-square-foot mansion, one of just a few single-family homes on the private island.
Shefler’s affiliation to the home was revealed in the legal filings and has not been previously reported. The Russian-born vodka magnate has a $1.1 billion net worth, according to Forbes. He heads SPI Group and its Luxembourg-based subsidiary, Stoli Group, the maker of the vodka of the same name and several other liquor brands.
In 2015, Shefler sold his 440-foot superyacht, Serene, to Prince Mohammed bin Salman for $550 million, the New York Times reported. In 2022, he bought Angelina Jolie’s share in the French Château Miraval vineyard for $28.4 million, according to published reports. The sale angered her ex-husband and Miraval co-owner Brad Pitt, who is suing Jolie for $67 million over the deal, according to published reports.
Shefler’s sale marked a win for Serhant, who only expanded to South Florida in 2023. His growth efforts have been dogged by legal battles –– that year, Palm Beach Gardens-based Sutter & Nugent sued Serhant Florida, alleging the brokerage stole trade secrets. That suit was dismissed in April.
Since then, he landed top Palm Beach agent Gary Pohrer and opened an office on the island. He’s also orchestrating the purchase of a $350 million-plus oceanfront assemblage in Palm Beach linked to Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi.
An earlier version of this story misindentified the buyer of the home.