HFZ Capital Group’s luxury developers staked their futures on Bjarke Ingels’s High Line debut and lost everything. Over the past 18 months, the firm has been obliterated by foreclosures and investor lawsuits.
John Simonlacaj (The Xi, Getty)
A former HFZ Capital executive faces four months in prison for his connection to an alleged construction bribery scheme.
In January, John Simonlacaj, HFZ’s former managing director of development, copped to submitting a false tax return related to renovation work at his home.
He had accepted $100,000 worth of free labor and materials from CWC Contracting, a carpentry subcontractor allegedly controlled by the Gambino crime family that worked on the XI, HFZ’s $2 billion luxury condo and hotel in Chelsea.
Simonlacaj failed to report $56,000 worth of the work as taxable income in his 2019 filings, authorities said. Another charge against Simonlacaj, alleging wire fraud conspiracy, was dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Former US Attorney Rudolph Giuliani and FBI Director William Webster look at chart of The Commission of La Cosa Nostra during a press conference at which reputed godfathers of the nation s five most powerful Mafia families were indicted as overlords of The Commission in 1985. Bettmann/Getty Images
Members of the Gambino crime family pleaded guilty to money laundering and wire fraud, the DOJ said.
Some of the crimes were committed through CWC Contracting Corp, the family s carpentry company.
The defendants will pay over $1.6 million in penalties but have yet to be fully sentenced.
11 members of the Gambino organized crime family recently pleaded guilty to a bevy of crimes including racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, and obstruction of justice, according to the Department of Justice.
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