Investors file 4 small bankruptcies in Brooklyn totaling $10.7M

Investors filed four separate bankruptcy petitions yesterday totaling $10.7 million in the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn in efforts to retain control of their properties.

In the largest by debt amount, $5.5 million, Yoel Perl through the entity PR Brooklyn 34 LLC, submitted a petition to halt a foreclosure auction of 1055 East 34th Street in Flatlands scheduled for today. A foreclosure auction is scheduled under case number 511216/2021 for November 16, 2023. The total judgment is $5.5 million as of May 2023. The development stalled during Covid, according to the petition. Yoel Perl of PR Brooklyn 34 LLC submitted a major alteration application to convert a two-family to a 10-unit building at 1055 East 34th in Flatlands, Brooklyn. The plan was filed with the New York City Department of Buildings on June 27, 2018 under job number 321772578. 1-23-44187-jmm

Direct link to the property’s ACRIS page.

The investor Lesmore Willis filed two bankruptcy actions yesterday, one with a defaulted $2.6 million loan secured by a group of five adjacent properties including 378 Rochester Avenue, 33 Ford Street and 1017 East New York Avenue in Crown Heights, and another for $1.5 million secured by 2303 Avenue D in Flatbush.

In the larger grouping, Lesmore Willis borrowed $2.6 million from Leviathan Capital in March 2022. That loan held off a pre-foreclosure action filed by the prior lender Columbia Capital that had provided a $1.5 million loan in 2019, but filed to foreclose 522888/2021 in September 2021. Now, Leviathan Capital set a UCC auction to sell the equity interests in the five adjacent tax lots. Maltz Auctions has a sale scheduled for November 16, 2023, the day after the filing, according to a lawsuit (533375/2023) that Willis filed in Brooklyn State Supreme Court on November 13, 2023. In the November complaint, Willis seeks to terminate the loan agreement and stop the UCC auction.

In the fourth bankruptcy auction Michael Israel filed his second pro se bankruptcy action for, 992 Atlantic Avenue and 994 Atlantic Avenue in Crown Heights in nine months. Michael Israel filed a pro se bankruptcy in March 2023 for the same assets. According to the prior bankruptcy action, which was terminated in August 2023, “On March 29, 2023, the Debtor filed a pro se chapter 11 petition. On April 5, 2023, the Court filed a motion to dismiss the chapter 11 case because the Debtor was not represented by counsel.”
Lender is Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust. Previously Michael Israel also filed bankruptcies to block auctions for Throop Ventures LLC and Fulton Ventures LLC, each with $2.8 million loans, on April 27, 2022. Also Two prior bankruptcies, 6/20/2019 19-43829 and 20-41478