Plenty of real estate families have issues, but the Harounians of Great Neck are in a league of their own.
The nonagenarian statesmen of the Long Island family, Jacob Harounian, once sued his son Mark Harounian alleging he used the family company’s funds to pay for his mistress.
Another family member claimed Mark elbowed him at a deposition, shoved a chair and pinned him against a wall. (Mark Harounian’s lawyers dispute this.)
Now a company Mark manages is seeking to hold his 96-year-old father, Jacob, and 86-year old mother, Violet, in contempt of court. The company alleges Jacob is moving money into various accounts, including Violet’s, to avoid paying a nearly $9 million judgment.
An August hearing revealed the level of acrimony between father and son.
“I know Mark Harounian. He’s — he’s my son. He’s not a bastard, he’s my son,” said Jacob Harounian with the assistance of a Farsi translator, attending the hearing via Microsoft Teams. “I had asked God to give me a good son, but … I apparently made a mistake when I was asking God. Instead of giving me a good son, he gave me this guy.”
“My son was a runaway boy. He fled with a Latin American girl and he went to Switzerland and then France,” said Jacob.
Family disputes in real estate are not uncommon. Notably, the Goldman family is embroiled in litigation over who should control the late Sol Goldman’s vast real estate empire. The Durst family’s problems with the late Robert Durst became an HBO documentary.
But the Harounians have reached a level of nastiness seldom seen.
Jacob Harounian’s rags to riches story is similar to others in Great Neck’s affluent Persian community. He emigrated from Iran to New York in 1970 and made money in the Persian rug business before parlaying it into real estate in the ’80s. By 2014, the Harounian real estate portfolio had about 30 Manhattan rental properties valued at $500 million.
The internal strife came to light in 2015 when Mark’s sister Mehrnaz Nancy Homapour alleged in a lawsuit that he used the family company as a personal piggy bank, buying Picassos, luxury cars and vacations. Jacob made similar allegations in his own suit against Mark in 2018 and claimed Mark confessed to stealing $3 million in family funds.
But Mark’s lawyers claimed he was entitled to compensation. They argued he did his best to build up the family business and that anything transferred into his account was money he was owed.
The most recent dispute centers around a company called United Hay owned by various Harounians. Mark is the managing member.
United Hay sued Jacob, the head of the dysfunctional clan, in 2017, alleging that while Mark was vacationing out of the country with his family, Jacob wired $5 million from United Hay to an account in his own name.
In 2023, a New York County judge ruled in United Hay’s favor. With interest, the judgment increased to $8.9 million.
United Hay alleges Jacob has not paid that judgment and is evading court orders. Its new filings allege the patriarch moved $5 million into an account with Violet’s name on it. United Hay is seeking to collect on that judgment and force Jacob and his wife to turn over documents.
“I want peace in my family”
Justice Joel Cohen required Jacob to appear at a virtual hearing. Jacob, despite his apparent wealth, sought to represent himself — a red flag for any judge. Cohen wanted Jacob to understand the gravity of being held in contempt of court.
But Jacob didn’t spend much time on legal arguments.
“I am a 96-year-old man,” he said. “Pretty soon I will be a 97-year-old. I’m old. I cannot work anymore. I am only a living person because of the efforts of my wife. I have not left my house for the past four years.”
“I don’t care for the — anything in this world. I care for my wife and myself. And I don’t know how many more months or years I can live, but the only thing I can tell you: I was a devoted father.”
“I want peace in my family,” he added.
United Hay’s attorney, who also represents Mark in other litigation, asked for a receiver to be appointed for his father’s bank accounts.
Jacob claimed to have no money. The judge asked if he had anyone who could pay for a lawyer. But Jacob said his second daughter is his “biggest enemy” for “colluding” with Mark against him, and that his other daughter is not involved.
“Leave me — leave me alone. Leave me free. I’m not in this world,” said Jacob. “My son — I trusted my son. He put a piece of paper in front of me and he asked me to sign it. I signed it. I trusted him, and he said, ‘Sign this so that you won’t have to pay $20 million in taxes.’”
“I did not know that he’s setting up a trap for me,” said Jacob. “This is a trap.”
But the judge, noting the family’s resources, found it hard to believe that Jacob could not afford a lawyer.
Cohen urged the warring relatives to settle their conflict.
“The court is really imploring you to explore whether there are paths to resolution that will not require what I suspect will be an extremely uncomfortable series of events to try to litigate this over their father’s objections,” the judge said.
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Jacob, through the interpreter, referred to the dispute as a “family feud.”
“The only thing I need is for my son to come to my house and he would write an apology letter and would sign it, and then I would forgive him,” he said.