Mark Nussbaum’s Sent Escrow Funds to Mendel Steiner’s Family

Mark Nussbaum, a disgraced Manhattan attorney and real estate fixer, said in new legal filings that he diverted $336 million from his law firm’s escrow clients to real estate investor Mendel Steiner between 2022 and 2025.

The filings reveal the inner workings of Nussbaum and Steiner’s alleged Ponzi scheme, where some creditors were offered “fictitious investment opportunities regarding supposed proof of funds transactions or purchases of real property that did not really exist,” said Nussbaum.

“Phony emails, escrow agreements, and deal documentation were used; non-existent third-parties in whose names the deals were supposedly being done were invented,” the filings state.

Nussbaum said that most of his escrow clients, who are now creditors of Nussbaum’s estate, were introduced to him by Steiner, who died by suicide at a hotel in Manhattan in January 2025 as the alleged scheme was about to spill into public view. Nussbaum Lowinger shut down days later and lawsuits started piling up from escrow clients demanding their money back.

Shelden Eisenberger, the lawyer handling the liquidation process — known as assignment for the benefit of creditors — of Nussbaum’s former law firms, Nussbaum Lowinger and Mark J Nussbaum & Associates, is zeroing in on the transfers to Steiner’s family in an attempt to recoup the hundreds of millions owed to Nussbaum’s creditors.

The new filings paint the clearest picture to date of the money flow between Nussbaum and Steiner and his family. Nussbaum said he directly transferred about $24 million to Steiner or to companies controlled by members of his family.

In addition to direct transfers, Nussbaum transferred escrow money to Steiner’s companies Aven Realty and Real Green Management. Those companies then transferred at least $68 million to companies controlled by Steiner’s father, brother and wife, according to Eisenberger.

To compensate Nussbaum for his role in the scheme, Aven Realty and Real Green sent $104 million, according to Eisenberger’s affirmation.

Eisenberger said he does not yet have access to all of Aven Realty and Real Green’s books and records. But his legal team has been able to document some transfers.

This includes $4.3 million to DS Lending, a company owned by Steiner’s wife Dini Endzweig Steiner; $361,500 to Olivii, a clothing company owned by Dini; $6.4 million to 365 12th Avenue LLC, a company owned by Steiner’s brother Naftali; and $6.7 million to 198 President Realty LLC, another company owned by Naftali Steiner.

Eisenberger is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Aven Realty or Real Green from transferring any assets.

He notes recovery efforts are on behalf of 52 creditors of Nussbaum’s who lost a significant amount of money as a result of the alleged ponzi scheme.

“Some of those creditors are themselves threatened with insolvency as a result of those losses,” said Eisenberger in his affirmation. “This is a very important case and this is an urgent matter.”

The filings also explicitly lay out how Nussbaum and Steiner’s Ponzi scheme worked. Nussbaum and Steiner pitched three types of investments to possible investors. One offered clients high monthly fees in exchange for deposits into Nussbaum Lowinger escrow accounts. The money was supposed to be held in escrow but was instead used by Steiner to show lenders or sellers that he was capitalized. The second method was through fraudulent real estate purchases, where Steiner provided Nussbaum’s clients a chance to finance his real estate acquisitions or deposit. The third was by offering clients a chance to deposit money for a short-time in exchange for “exorbitant interest and fees.” The money was supposed to be used for “show capital” transactions. Instead, Nussbaum used the money to make bridge loans to real estate dealmakers.