A record-setting Manhattan real estate deal masked millions of dollars that helped prop up the money-losing New York Observer and covered improper personal expenses, according to a report.
A former top exec in the Kushner Cos., which paid $1.8 billion for 666 Fifth Ave. in 2007, charged in a lawsuit that the company diverted more than $5 million from the financing package to keep the paper going.
Kevin Swill, who was president of Kushner's financing arm, Westminster Capital, asserted that Charles Kushner also paid at least $300,000 from the deal to Mark O'Donnell, the live-in boyfriend of former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark.
Those payments, as well as others covering family loans and Kushner's personal mortgage, allegedly amounted to a "wrongful diversion" of the proceeds from a the office building deal.
Friday, December 5, 2008
New York City 2010
