Not even weeks after closing the chapter on a $187 million debt to Fortress Funding Group, Charles Cohen is seeking to write the subsequent story within the epic lender-borrower battle.
In response to a authorized submitting from Fortress of their ongoing battle, an legal professional for Cohen penned a letter referencing a lawsuit that sees Cohen pursuing $204 million in damages from Fortress, Crain’s reported. The damages purportedly stem from a foreclosures public sale involving 4 of Cohen’s former properties.
The lawsuit alleges the out-of-court public sale of the properties was not performed in a commercially affordable method and will have concerned “totally different advertising and marketing methods, totally different brokers, and totally different time frames.”
Cohen filed the lawsuit a yr in the past, alleging that Fortress acquired the portfolio for $150 million, or $85 million under the lender’s inside valuation. The submitting has lately turn into related as Cohen claims he wanted to lift more cash to resolve his debt with Fortress as a result of it purchased the properties at public sale for lower than what it might have traded for in a extra clear course of.
Fortress denied Cohen’s allegations in authorized filings.
Earlier this month, Cohen’s debt to Fortress appeared largely like water below the bridge. He glad the $187 million in liabilities after the creditor pursued him for ensures associated to defaults on a $534 million mortgage portfolio.
The battle dated again to 2022, when debtors related to Cohen took out greater than $500 million, with him signing a warranty settlement on the transaction. Fortress sued in 2024 and Cohen finally misplaced the properties that backed the unique portfolio later that yr, when Fortress took them in what was among the largest UCC foreclosures of all time.
An appellate courtroom determined in Fortress’s favor in February 2025, and a decrease courtroom entered the $187 million judgment one month later.
The lender then accused Cohen of shielding his assets; Cohen declared he was working onerous to fulfill the debt. A receiver for Cohen’s possession pursuits was appointed by the courtroom this previous March.
The dispute and eventual judgment in opposition to Cohen led him to promote a number of Manhattan towers. Fortress, nonetheless, stated it was not accomplished with Cohen and can preserve pursuing different claims in opposition to him, probably resulting in different judgments.
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