Long Island real estate empire seeks to claw back $15M from “irresponsible” son

A Long Island family fired back after their 44-year old son claimed his greedy father cut him out of their multi-billion-dollar business. 

Last fall, Scott Burman, 44, sued his father Jan Burman for $14 million. Scott claimed that Jan’s top lieutenant became jealous of Scott’s success at the firm, Engel Burman, creating a wedge within the family, and that members of Engel Burman then conspired to exclude Scott from Jan Burman’s new company, B2K Development. 

Now, nearly two dozen entities affiliated with Jan Burman have sued Scott back, alleging the scion collected millions of dollars in distributions and salary but failed to show up for work. The complaint describes Scott as “irresponsible and avaricious.” It seeks compensatory damages of at least $15 million as well as punitive damages.

According to the complaint, Scott failed to supervise financial controllers and ignored multiple sales tax audits during his time at a construction arm of Engel Burman. Instead of focusing on construction, he allegedly spent his time on “influencing” and lining his friend’s pocketbooks. 

Glen Waldman, an attorney representing entities related to Jan Burman, said the suit should not be deemed a countersuit. He also said the move to exclude Scott from B2K was due to Scott’s failure to show up to work, not due to jealousy. 

“The decision simply was, it’s time to just move on, the people who really want to work hard we’ll work together and we’ll do deals and form LLCs,” said Waldman. “There’s nothing in this country that says you can’t do it that way. And he (Scott) doesn’t like it. But that’s too bad.”

“This is a reactionary piece of fiction seeking to distract from a case that I filed in New York County months ago,” Scott Burman said in response to the lawsuit. “The allegations are false and fanciful and I am confident that the court will view them as such.”   

Jan Burman’s lawsuit alleges Scott was given distributions in special purpose entities before he reached the age of 18. After college, he worked at Engel Burman’s construction company. In the past six years, he collected $900,000 in salary and $12.4 million in development and construction fees, according to the lawsuit.

Instead of working, it alleges, he focused on self-promotion. His other time was spent training for marathons and triathlons.

The lawsuit claims that Scott’s lack of interest harmed the company because he hired incompetent financial controllers. Worse, the company discovered two state tax audits which Scott failed to mention. 

In fact, a CFO discovered that Engel Burman had been under a tax audit for five years and owed $1.37 million in sales tax, according to the lawsuit.

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The suit also alleges Scott forced his construction team to purchase risk management insurance from a “good buddy” of his.

Despite these issues, Scott allegedly gave talks and public appearances stressing his important role in the firm and its construction company, EB Construction.

“Defendant presented himself to the public as a critical participant in rebuilding EB Construction, identifying profitable real estate, negotiating contracts, designing improvements, constructing improvements, sourcing debt and equity, and operating various establishments,” the complaint said. “He did none of this!”