A multimillion-dollar legal battle between a Manhattan condominium developer and what it considers a “holdover tenant” has taken an explosive turn: the developer has now sued the tenant’s lawyer for $25 million, claiming Manhattan real estate attorney Adam Leitman Bailey is waging a “malicious media campaign” aimed at “shaking down” the developer for a seven-figure payment to his contingency-fee client before the tenant will vacate a residential building.
In a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court by an arm of the developer known as 215 West 84th St. Owner LLC, the building owner alleges, “Unable to quickly extract the seven-figure payout he expects [as a tenant living in a $70 million building that could be remade into a luxury condominium site], [Ahmet Nejat Ozsu’s] lawyers … have turned what should be a dispute settled according to the law into a multi-national media circus.”
