A Bronx developer with a previous in organized crime is accusing his lender of working a playbook straight out of it.
James McManus, a former affiliate of the Lucchese crime household (suppose Goodfellas) turned contractor, filed a sweeping federal lawsuit in opposition to Fairbridge Asset Administration and its executives, alleging they orchestrated a racketeering and fraud scheme to wrest management of his improvement web site at 1932 McGraw Avenue. The grievance, filed in Manhattan federal court docket, seeks $75 million in damages, Crain’s reported.
On the middle of the dispute is a $2.1 million mortgage Fairbridge issued in 2021 to finance McManus’ plan to switch a two-story home with a 23-unit reasonably priced housing constructing. McManus claims the Darien, Connecticut-based non-public credit score agency, led by his childhood acquaintance John Lettera, lured him in with guarantees of funding, then abruptly withheld capital, manufactured a default and used aggressive ways to power a foreclosures.
The lawsuit has 15 counts, together with racketeering, extortion, cash laundering and fraud. McManus alleges Fairbridge demanded accelerated reimbursement regardless of him staying present, pressured him to record the property underneath menace of seizure and extracted a $1 million fee to maintain the mortgage energetic, solely to foreclose anyway. He additionally claims the eventual foreclosures public sale in October 2025 was a “sham,” performed whereas he was recovering from main coronary heart surgical procedure.
Fairbridge disputes the allegations, calling them “completely spurious” in court docket filings. The agency maintains McManus defaulted in 2023 and acquired a number of extensions earlier than it moved to guard its funding.
Its attorneys have requested a choose to dismiss the case, arguing McManus lacks standing and is trying to recast routine enforcement actions as legal conduct.
What makes the go well with particularly attention-grabbing is the way it reads extra like a mob indictment than an ordinary business dispute. McManus refers to Fairbridge because the “Sixth Household” and casts its executives in mafia roles, from “Boss” to “Consigliere.”
The rhetoric underscores his broader declare: that frivolously regulated non-public credit score lenders can function with few guardrails, notably when coping with debtors shut out of conventional banks.
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