A dispute over a bathroom waste pipe in a Manhattan co-op has escalated into a fraud lawsuit involving allegations of forged financial documents and a protracted legal battle between residents and the building’s board of directors.
Angelo Chan and his husband, Frederick Wertheim, purchased a 2,500-square-foot unit at 907 Fifth Avenue in 2018 for $5.2 million, anticipating a renovation that would include three bathrooms. However, a long-standing disagreement over the location of a bathroom drain pipe has left two of their bathrooms unusable for five years, with water shut off to those fixtures amid ongoing conflict.
The initial issue arose from damage caused when a kitchen pipe in Chan and Wertheim’s unit was inadvertently punctured during drywall installation, resulting in water damage in the unit below, which is owned by board member Andrew Crisses and his wife, Abby. Both parties reside in the building, with the Crisses having lived there since 2003. Several years after the damage, the Crisses combined their apartment with an adjacent unit, prompting renewed disputes over the routing of a bathroom waste pipe. The contested plans propose either running the pipe through the Crisses’ ceiling, necessitating structural work in their unit, or beneath the floor of the Chan-Wertheim apartment, which would require alterations to its hallway flooring.
Efforts to resolve the plumbing conflict have been complicated by revelations concerning the co-op’s financial filings. Chan and Wertheim’s attorney, Steven Sladkus, alleges that since 2020 the co-op board has failed to produce legitimate audited financial statements and, when pressured, submitted documents suspected to be fraudulent. According to a lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court earlier this month, the disputed financial records contain inconsistencies including undisclosed ongoing litigation, blank entries for legal fees, discrepancies in reported maintenance income, and questionable accounting firm logos.
CBIZ, which acquired the accounting firm Marks Paneth, stated that Marks Paneth did not issue the challenged reports and described the documents as fraudulent, citing forged signatures and letterhead. The plaintiffs accuse the co-op board of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty in connection with these financial irregularities.
In response, a spokesperson for the 907 Fifth Avenue co-op board characterized the lawsuit as “a baseless stunt” and denied the core allegations, suggesting the management agent from Brown Harris Stevens was responsible for the documents. Brown Harris Stevens declined to comment, as did the attorney representing the Crisses.
The legal dispute remains active, with both the plumbing impasse and the broader accusations about the co-op’s financial practices unresolved.