Maverick Quietly Takes Chetrit Interests at Own Auction

The day before Christmas Eve, Meyer Chetrit’s interests in two holding companies were quietly auctioned off.

The highest bidder was an entity of aggressive lender Maverick Real Estate Partners. The affiliate had foreclosed on Chetrit, won a $132 million judgment, and had set about getting paid by garnishing and auctioning Chetrit’s assets.

The result is the latest in Chetrit’s ongoing financial decline and legal battles and reveals the playbook of Maverick, which seemingly aims to take Chetrit’s interests for itself on the cheap, under the auspices of an auction.

The Christmas week auction is the second in the ongoing legal saga between Maverick and Chetrit. At the first auction, a representative for Maverick traded bids with Meyer Chetrit’s brother Juda, who co-heads the Chetrit Organization.

But the second time around, it appears there were no bids traded because no one showed up. Court memos and affirmations from both Maverick’s counsel and the city marshal responsible for the auction detailed the participants and spectators at the first auction, but their documents refer to no attendees, other than Maverick’s affiliate, at the second.

At its own auction, Maverick bought Chetrit’s interest in an LLC called CF Jamaica. The entity, through a series of other companies, controls a 16-story residential building at 152-01 and 150-13 88th Avenue in Jamaica.

The property is worth about $150 million but tied to about $285 million in debt, according to court documents filed by Chetrit’s legal team. Chetrit allegedly received no income

The other entity Maverick won was called 90-100 Trinity Holder. The company is likely linked to the Chetrits’ 90 and 100 Trinity Place in Manhattan’s Financial District, two 10- and 15-story buildings. It’s unclear the level of control or interest Meyer Chetrit personally has in the property.

It’s hardly surprising that these auctions should see few attendees. The auctions are little advertised. The city marshal’s handbook requires that public auctions be advertised the day-of in a newspaper. There are no requirements that auctions be marketed online.

And they are scheduled seemingly on the fly. Six days before the auction, a spokesperson for Fox Rothschild, the law firm representing Maverick and the host of the first auction, said no date had been set yet for another. The Department of Investigation, which oversees the city marshals, similarly said days before that it was unaware of any scheduled auctions in the case.

Marshal Martin Bienstock, the city marshal hired by Maverick to run the ostensibly public auction, declined to answer questions about the value of the winning bid or whether anyone besides Maverick participated in the auction. Neither Maverick nor Matthew Schenker, a lawyer for the affiliate with Fox Rothschild, responded to a request for comment.

Chetrit had made a legal attempt to stop the auctions but had been turned down by a judge.