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 combat, an lawyer 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 cheap method and will have concerned “totally different advertising and marketing methods, totally different brokers, and totally different time frames.”
Cohen filed the lawsuit a 12 months in the past, alleging that Fortress acquired the portfolio for $150 million, or $85 million beneath the lender’s inside valuation. The submitting has just lately develop into related as Cohen claims he wanted to boost more cash to resolve his debt with Fortress as a result of it purchased the properties at public sale for lower than what it could 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 combat dated again to 2022, when debtors linked to Cohen took out greater than $500 million, with him signing a warranty settlement on the transaction. Fortress sued in 2024 and Cohen in the end misplaced the properties that backed the unique portfolio later that 12 months, when Fortress took them in what was among the largest UCC foreclosures of all time.
An appellate court docket determined in Fortress’s favor in February 2025, and a decrease court docket 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 court docket this previous March.
The dispute and eventual judgment towards Cohen led him to promote a number of Manhattan towers. Fortress, nonetheless, stated it was not finished with Cohen and can maintain pursuing different claims towards him, doubtlessly resulting in different judgments.
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