Former Vornado Exec Jared Solomon To Face Trial

The former Vornado Realty Trust leasing executive charged with stealing millions from Steve Roth’s REIT will have his day in court.

Jared Solomon’s trial on federal fraud charges has been scheduled for April 14 at the U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan.

Solomon was arrested in December 2024 and charged with embezzling more than $9.5 million from Vornado over a period of 15 years. If found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

A source familiar with the allegations told The Real Deal that they have to do with Vornado’s Times Square signage business.

According to prosecutors, Solomon created fake brokerage companies named Margoux Media and Cobalt Advisors and then submitted invoices to Vornado for work he claimed the companies had performed.

“The defendant carried out his fraud scheme by using fake commercial real estate agreements — mainly fake broker agreements, among other types of agreements — and fake invoices that called for Victim Company-1 to issue checks and wire payments to one of three purported real estate broker companies,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

Federal prosecutors initially redacted his employer’s name from their indictment, referring to Vornado only as “Victim Company 1.” But a newly unredacted indictment now identifies Vornado.

The U.S. Attorney’s office said Solomon used the stolen money to buy a $4.5 million Westchester home at 3 Beverly Road in Purchase, New York, and a $3.6 million co-op apartment at 23 East 74th Street.

In a newly filed motion, prosecutors said Solomon lied under oath about the Westchester home.

In a separate case in family court, they say he testified under oath in a deposition that a family member had provided $4.5 million in cash for the purchase and that Solomon and his ex-wife signed the deed only for estate planning purposes.

That was a lie, prosecutors say citing bank records that show how payments Solomon billed from Vornado went into the phony companies he set up, and then to buying the home.

Solomon had sought to have certain evidence excluded from the trial, arguing that the purchase of luxury homes could portray him as wealthy or extravagant and create a “wealth-based bias” among jurors.

He said that could lead to a trial within a trial requiring testimony from accountants and bankers — an argument the prosecutors rejected.

“There will be no mini-trial,” prosecutors wrote. “There will be no extended detour into the divorce proceedings, custody disputes, or any other aspect of the New Jersey litigation. The Government intends only to show, through Solomon’s own words, that he lied under oath about the very fraud proceeds at the heart of this case.”