As {the handcuffs} snapped on, Joseph Makhani let loose a guttural howl. Decide Michele Rodney had remanded the Nice Neck landlord to Rikers to await sentencing after a Manhattan jury final month took simply 90 minutes to seek out him guilty of three deed-theft-related felonies.
State prosecutors proved Makhani, 63, had executed “a meticulous, multi-year scheme” to steal 107 West 118th Avenue and 135 West 131st Avenue by way of crafty, courtroom manipulation and deception utilizing faux names, faux firms and pretend addresses, usually assisted by frontmen and attorneys prepared to play alongside.
However Makhani’s actual property enterprise was not restricted to these Harlem brownstones, that are simply two of dozens of properties investigators say adopted comparable patterns.
When the New York Lawyer Basic’s investigators started inspecting Makhani in 2015, they rapidly acknowledged him as a high-volume suspect. Pretrial filings describe him as having been concerned in additional than 800 deed transactions by a minimum of 100 company entities. By the top of the investigation, the workforce had uncovered a minimum of 52 extra properties that confirmed indicators of legal conduct — proof, they argued, of a three-decade operation that helped Makhani amass an empire price $83 million by 2016, in line with courtroom paperwork. His portfolio extends to residential actual property within the rich Kings Point section of Great Neck, the place he seems to personal a minimum of one mansion and probably a number of, in line with data.
“I’ve completed a whole lot of offers, if not 1000’s,” Makhani testified in civil depositions. He didn’t take the trial stand.
The next investigation into Makhani’s enterprise is predicated on 20 interviews, trial testimony and 1000’s of public data reviewed over two years of reporting. Actions by Makhani-tied firms are attributed right here to “Makhani.” His attorneys didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark.
At dwelling in actual property’s underbelly
Born in Iran, Makhani “got here to this nation with nothing,” mentioned protection lawyer Susan Necheles. Quickly after arriving, he and brother Kamran “Mike” Makhani obtained into actual property, an business standard amongst fellow Persian Jews residing round Nice Neck, Lengthy Island.
Makhani coveted anonymity, in line with trial testimony from a county investigator. He averted social media and blurred Google Streetview photographs of his 8,400-square-foot dwelling. He hated being photographed, hid his face and growled “Fuck off!” at courthouse reporters. He used variant spellings reminiscent of McKani, McKhani and McKany on official varieties and put in workers as short-term officers of his many LLCs. Dennis Fullerton, a janitor with restricted literacy abilities, testified that he signed lawsuit verifications at Makhani’s request.
From an operations hub at 148-45 Hillside Avenue in Jamaica, Queens, the industrious Makhani cultivated enduring relationships with like-minded males who occupied obscure corners of the actual property market and infrequently met at foreclosures auctions on the Queens County courthouse.
Past foreclosed properties, courthouse networking provided data, an particularly prized commodity in the course of the pre-internet ’90s.
It was the city sq. for potential partners-in-crime, the place hustlers whispered recommendations on weak householders behind on their payments, or, even higher: lifeless. Some attorneys there had facet gigs as court-appointed officers, aware about helpful information about estates or foreclosures circumstances. Different speculators would agree on an advantageous path to earnings: bid-rigging.
“It’s a quasi-legal ecosystem of all these individuals who know one another, all wheeling and dealing,” mentioned Invoice Lienhard, an lawyer who’s battled fraudsters.
In keeping with federal prosecutors, Makhani and 24 others turned public foreclosures auctions into little greater than formalities. They secretly determined amongst themselves who would purchase every property, conserving costs artificially low, and paid out “commissions” to individuals.
All 25 conspirators pleaded responsible in 1998. Makhani paid a $20,000 high-quality and served a number of months upstate at Otisville.
Then, he went again to work.
The playbook
Bizarre buyers keep away from properties with murky title chains: deserted buildings, houses whose homeowners died with out wills and estates break up amongst lacking or far-flung heirs. Makhani sought them out. He specialised in what he known as “properties which have complications.”
“Often it’s not of venture,” he mentioned. “It’s an issue that you need to remedy.”
His playbook was as follows: discover a weak property, manufacture or purchase a declare to it, safe authorized recognition of the declare and extract worth by way of a sale, mortgage or lawsuit.
To convey his plans to life, Makhani relied on a rotating community of finders and fixers to establish troubled properties and monitor down folks whose signatures may work for deed transfers.
One recurring middleman was Charles Simon, a notary, pastor and actual property dealer who introduced Makhani alternatives, and agreed to assist ship possession rights for a payment. Prosecutors mentioned Simon additionally fronted LLCs utilized in sham transactions.
The primary deed switch may carry a solid signature or one obtained by way of deception.
Some deeds in Makhani-linked transactions bore signatures attributed to jail inmates, psychiatric sufferers, dementia victims, Puerto Rican hurricane survivors and folks detectives deemed “fictitious.” A 2004 deed transferring a Harlem lot from the Negro Labor Committee to Makhani purportedly carried the signature of the group’s former president, Robert Russell. An archivist who in contrast it with Russell’s recognized 1971 signature mentioned the 2 didn’t match. The deed listed 555-1212 — listing help — as a contact quantity.
“They’re like, ‘You can not struggle this man as a result of he’ll crush you. He won’t ever again down.’”
The subsequent downside to unravel? Making the possession look legit.
Prosecutors mentioned Makhani usually moved a property from the corporate tied to the questionable deed right into a second LLC, distancing the brand new proprietor from the unique transaction. That firm might then search a courtroom order confirming its possession by way of a quiet-title lawsuit, a authorized motion wherein a decide resolves competing claims to a property. Anybody who might have an possession curiosity is meant to obtain discover and a chance to seem in courtroom.
Makhani’s firms usually received by default as a result of potential heirs or homeowners by no means appeared. Fraud knowledgeable Elizabeth Lynch testified at his latest trial that course of servers typically delivered notices to locations the place the recipients didn’t stay — together with boarded-up buildings — a apply often known as “sewer service.” When the previous or precise homeowners didn’t present up, the quiet title was simply granted.
With a contemporary default quiet title judgment in hand, Makhani sought out establishments prepared to deal with him like some other actual property investor.
To acquire $1.2 million in mortgages on the (stolen) West 118th brownstone, Makhani turned to Flushing Financial institution. On his software, Makhani mentioned he paid $975,000 for the property, not the $10 publicly recorded. He promised to personally assure the mortgage, noting his $83,286,000 in property as of 2016, courtroom data confirmed.
The financial institution, which has lent Makhani cash since a minimum of 2002, in line with public filings, confronted little danger in green-lighting the cash. Flushing’s James Jacovatos testified that Makhani was a constant re-payer. Plus, the financial institution had title insurance coverage, paid for by Makhani. If one thing screwy emerged about his possession, the financial institution might accumulate on the coverage.
As soon as Makhani secured management of a property, he might monetize it like some other actual property investor: promote it, renovate and flip it, or borrow towards its fairness to fund development or different offers.
Makhani gutted 107 West 118th, a former single-room occupancy, changing it to 4 market-rate leases charging about $3,300 per thirty days. It’s one among about 30 buildings at present owned by Makhani, testified worker Damian Junor.
Actual property salesperson Kathy Arjang-Makani is Joseph Makhani’s presumed spouse; she shared a house with Makhani, property data and course of server affidavits present. Streeteasy reveals she’s additionally dealt with condominium leasing for a minimum of 10 Makhani-tied buildings since 2023, principally throughout Harlem, but in addition in Fort Greene and Ridgewood. She at present has three Makhani-tied properties listed on the market, in line with her Weichert Properties web page: an Astoria two-flat for $1.2 million, a Sundown Park two-family dwelling for $999,000 and a Harlem townhouse for $1.6 million.
Makhani has flipped dozens of properties over the previous 25 years, filings present. After acquiring 4 separate $0 deeds in 2002 for a Bedford-Stuyvesant three-family, Makhani’s LLC offered it for $560,000 two years later. One other instance: Makhani turned a 2017 $5,000 deed switch right into a 2018 sale for $750,000, after first successful a quiet-title default judgment on the Jamaica, Queens, two-family constructing.
Legal warfare
Even when Makhani’s lawsuits have been challenged, opponents usually ended up mired in litigation. Even courtroom victories didn’t all the time translate into sensible ones.
Take 237 Maple Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Lengthy a vacant lot, Brooklyn locals tried to contact the folks behind two 148-45 Hillside Avenue LLCs that held the deed since 2003. Getting no response, they remodeled it into the Maple Avenue Group Backyard in 2012.
Two years later, Makhani confirmed up, bringing a crew to tear up a backyard mattress. One of many gardeners known as the cops, The Nation reported. Police advised Makhani to come back again when he had a courtroom order; he’s nonetheless preventing to get one.
A decide dominated in 2015 that Makhani’s 2003 deed was “of doubtful validity,” and the gardeners ultimately persuaded the New York Metropolis Division of Parks & Recreation to buy the parcel in a condemnation continuing for $2.3 million. However who would get the cash?
Attorneys discovered true heirs of Germaine Kirton, 237 Maple’s final verified proprietor. They known as Makhani’s deed “fraudulent,” signed by “fictitious” heirs an knowledgeable genealogist couldn’t verify ever existed. In a 2025 ruling, New York Supreme Courtroom Decide Wayne Saitta agreed.
That didn’t finish the dispute. Makhani subsequently appealed for a 49 p.c share.
Deed signatures from 2004 purportedly by Russell, transferring 29 West 128th Avenue to Makhani (center and proper)
His attorneys play endurance hardball. “They’re like, ‘You can not struggle this man as a result of he’ll crush you. He won’t ever again down,’” mentioned Authorized Assist’s Gerard Deenihan.
Deenihan represents Diane Prince, whose household encountered one other department of Makhani’s authorized technique: partition lawsuits.
The scheme labored like this: Makhani bought cut-rate deeds from a number of folks, every holding partial curiosity within the property. This usually occurred when an proprietor died and not using a will, and several other kin had a declare to a share of the house by way of familial ties.
In Prince’s case, Makhani paid $136,000 for deeds granting him a 75 p.c stake in her household’s $695,000 Queens dwelling of 55 years. Then Makhani sued, aiming to drive Prince into shopping for him out for $500,000. Barring that, he demanded hire as a co-owner however by no means paid any upkeep or taxes,
filings mentioned.
Prince received the preliminary lawsuit, and New York later banned such partition actions in 2024.
However the struggle didn’t finish.
Makhani stays, on paper, a 75 p.c proprietor. He’s now determined to play landlord, deploying a novel tactic: get somebody to signal a lease, then demand the Princes let a stranger stay of their dwelling.
Slow street to justice
It’s unclear when Makhani began working his deed-theft technique. However a overview of 184 Makhani-tied properties discovered deeds recorded as early as 2001 exhibiting him paying nothing for some acquisitions, together with a Brooklyn three-family home.
Makhani’s 1998 bid-rigging conviction was the primary of a number of law-enforcement encounters over time, however none stopped the fraud.
In 2007, the Queens District Lawyer charged Makhani and three of his LLCs with a number of deed-related crimes. His lawyer, a former president of the Queens County Bar Affiliation, helped get Makhani’s prices dropped. The LLCs pleaded responsible to falsifying enterprise data, and paid $15,000 in fines. By then, Makhani’s LLCs had already offered the properties for $1.2 million, Newsday reported.
In 2013, a Harlem-based contractor named Invoice Rohlfing known as 311, involved about his aged neighbor, Veronica Palmer, and unusual filings recorded on her West 118th Avenue brownstone, Rohlfing mentioned. His findings would later grow to be key trial reveals in Lawyer Basic Letitia James’ prosecution case.
In 2015, the Lawyer Basic’s workplace was already Makhani for a scheme involving his makes an attempt to fraudulently declare “deserted funds” from dormant financial institution accounts, courtroom data mentioned. As they dug deeper, they uncovered his net of deed transfers.
Six years later, a grand jury indicted Makhani for the Harlem brownstones theft. A seven-week trial led to his 2026 conviction. Necheles mentioned she expects Makhani will win on enchantment. His sentencing is scheduled for September.
Makhani could also be headed to jail, however the mechanics that made his scheme potential haven’t disappeared. State legislation nonetheless requires the Metropolis Register to report any deed that arrives in full, recordable type.
“Should you’re prepared to be a legal and put ahead fraudulent papers, you may just about get title to something, real-estate sensible,” noticed residential lawyer Gordon Remer.
And, his playbook stored rolling whilst Makhani’s trial date approached.
In keeping with courtroom data, Makhani hadn’t attended his previous collaborator Charles Simon’s funeral when he died in 2014. However quickly after, he sued Simon and his heirs to get them to shut on a 2013 deal Simon supposedly made to promote his Queens bungalow for $150,000.
Solely after Makhani scored a default judgment did Simon’s youngsters lawyer up, saying they’d by no means been served the lawsuit. Simon’s daughters testified the gross sales contract was “bogus” and “a forgery.” Makhani firehosed Simon’s property, submitting an extra $1.35 million swimsuit citing Simon’s “fraud.”
Simon’s household ultimately stopped exhibiting as much as courtroom, and Makhani received one other default judgment ordering the New York Metropolis Sheriff’s Workplace to execute a deed. Filings present a purchase order value of $10.
Within the winter of 2026, the house, at 7315 one hundred and seventieth Avenue in Recent Meadows, was listed, eliminated, then listed once more, in line with Zillow. Weichert actual property agent Kathy Arjang-Makani was the vendor’s agent, in line with the StreetEasy web page.
Simply weeks earlier than Makhani’s trial was resulting from start, the vendor accepted a suggestion, per Zillow.
Then, on July 9, the week after a jury discovered Joseph Makhani responsible and a decide remanded him to jail, the deal, for $1.3 million, closed.
