Gramercy Park co-op board hit with subpoena over alleged fraudster’s financial records

Jon Asgeir Johannesson and 50 GPN

Creditors of failed Icelandic bank Glitnir have subpoenaed the co-op
board of 50 Gramercy Park North to get a hold of the financial records
of alleged fraudster Jon Asgeir Johannesson,
a retail tycoon accused of raiding the bank for more than $2 billion,
the Post reported. Johannesson owns a penthouse in the Ian
Schrager-designed building for which he paid $14.2 million in 2007, and
on which he is said to have recently paid off a $10 million mortgage.
As The Real Deal reported in May, Glitnir filed a lawsuit
against him in Manhattan state court, charging that Johannesson looted
the bank in 2007 and 2008 in order to prop up his own struggling
company. The bank also won an order from a London court to freeze his
assets, including the Gramercy Park North penthouse and a nearby $10.3
million co-op at 2 Lexington Avenue. Because the bank officials
couldn’t find any assets in Iceland, they are looking to the co-op
board for answers about his other New York assets and bank accounts.
“You can bet the co-op board’s requirements on disclosure and
collateral have been a lot tighter than those of the Icelandic banking
system,” a source said. It’s not the first time Johannesson has run
into trouble at the building. Tenants of his 16th-floor apartment at
the same building sued him for $52,000 in February for, among other complaints, installing cheap furniture instead of the high-end finishes they were promised. [Post]

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