Virtually two years after being indicted, Omnibuild and its former CEO John Mingione are lastly nearing a trial date for his or her alleged roles in a $86 million fraud scheme.
The New York development agency and Mingione reached a tentative settlement with the Manhattan District Legal professional’s workplace for a trial in April, which may final six to eight weeks.
Prosecutors mentioned they not too long ago accomplished their discovery, consisting of no less than 470,000 paperwork.
“I suppose we’re able to go to trial,” mentioned Christopher Beard, an assistant District Legal professional, throughout a listening to in entrance of Choose Ann Thompson in December.
Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg’s workplace alleged in early 2024 that Mingione and Omnibuild participated in a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme spearheaded by former HFZ Capital Group government Nir Meir to inflate invoices on the XI, a twisting condominium mission on the Excessive Line. The D.A.’s workplace charged Omnibuild and Mingione with grand larceny.
However because the begin, Mingione and Omnibuild have maintained their innocence. They argued they had been victims of the Meir and HFZ Capital’s dangerous acts. (Kevin Stewart, a former accountant at Omnibuild, was additionally charged for his position within the scheme.)
“Omnibuild voluntarily assisted the Manhattan District Legal professional’s Workplace for months,” mentioned Omnibuild’s civil lawyer John Ruggiero. “Regardless of that good-faith cooperation, and correspondence from the District Legal professional’s workplace confirming Omnibuild’s standing as a sufferer, the District Legal professional’s workplace finally selected to depend on a small variety of self-interested cooperators who sought to keep away from prosecution by shifting blame onto Omnibuild and Mr. Mingione.”
Ruggiero additionally mentioned the District Legal professional’s workplace has excluded “exculpatory proof” from its discovery manufacturing.
The D.A.’s workplace mentioned in a response that it “will reply to any protection motions in courtroom filings.”
Mingione and Omnibuild had been desirous to set a trial date. Omnibuild’s felony protection lawyer Eric Snyder mentioned the corporate’s inventory choice plan has dropped to a fraction of its former worth.
“The corporate can’t get jobs. They will’t work. HPD [Housing Preservation Department] is holding up their work,” mentioned Snyder on the listening to in December. “It’s harmful, it’s devastating. It’s choking off the corporate of those staff.”
In 2024, Omnibuild’s employees claimed that the indictment alone led to $1 billion in losses.
Snyder pleaded with the courtroom to carry the April trial date in place.
“We wish to preserve this date. If it strikes once more, it’s going to be the corporate dying on the vine,” he mentioned.
The case has dragged on since February 2024, when the costs had been first introduced towards Meir, Mingione, Stewart, Omnibuild, HFZ, a former Omnibuild worker and two former HFZ staff.
Prosecutors leveled probably the most severe expenses towards Meir. The D.A.’s workplace alleged Meir diverted thousands and thousands of {dollars} from HFZ’s actual property initiatives solely to return the cash with sizable shortfalls. Meir was additionally accused of defrauding New York Metropolis out of $15 million in taxes.
Meir was fired from luxurious actual property developer HFZ in December 2020, because the agency was losing its high-profile projects to foreclosures. Meir’s former boss Ziel Feldman blamed Meir for the agency’s collapse in a scathing lawsuit. As Meir fended off lawsuits from HFZ collectors, he hunkered down in a Miami Seashore property, paying $150,000 per 30 days in lease, till he was arrested in a resort room on the 1 Resort South Seashore and extradited to New York in February 2024.
Meir, who has pleaded not responsible, is now on his third lawyer.
He was initially held with out bail and held on Rikers Island for almost a yr earlier than being launched in March 2025 on a diminished bail package deal of $1 million. Simply weeks later the choose claimed Meir violated the phrases of his bail and despatched him again to jail.
Meir was launched in June, however with digital monitoring and restricted to the confines of a New York residence.
In the meantime, HFZ Capital, two of its former staff, together with their head of development, and a former Omnibuild worker have pleaded responsible to varied expenses. Not one of the defendants who pleaded responsible got jail sentences.
On the December listening to, the D.A’s workplace mentioned it has despatched over a certificates of compliance to Meir’s lawyer for his 4 indictments, that means the prosecutors have supplied all discovery and a trial date seems imminent.
Meir will likely be tried individually from Omnibuild and Mingione.
On the finish of the December listening to with Omnibuild and Mingione’s legal professionals current, the choose instructed the events take a look at another decision apart from a trial.
“I’ll at all times encourage a disposition, if there’s any manner towards a disposition… in a lot the way in which… that we ask jurors to contemplate the views of their fellow jurors, and don’t be so wedded to their place, I ask that of all of you,” mentioned Thompson.
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