the former Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman<\/a> is facing over his ties to Sprei.<\/p>\n\u201cSeddio has a history of abusing and manipulating the judicial system, including by submitting knowingly false sworn statements,\u201d the latest suit from Swiss investor Angelos Metaxas and a New Zealand firm, Pertshire Investments LP, claims.<\/p>\n
The suit claims that \u201cSeddio has a history of abusing and manipulating the judicial system\u2026stemming from his role as the former chair of the Kings County Democratic Committee.\u201d Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Federal Court filing accuses the Dem heavyweight of \u201cengaging in blatant forum and judge shopping through which he can utilize his political influence, stemming from his role as the former chair of the Kings County Democratic Committee, in service of Sprei\u2019s schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Seddio or Sprei replied to a list of questions sent to them.<\/p>\n
Lauren Zimmerman, the attorney representing the two aggrieved investors, said she could see similar alleged abuses in roughly a half-dozen other cases filed against Sprei \u2014 most of which list Seddio either as an attorney or defendant, including a federal RICO suit filed last spring by stiffed investor David Sofer in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
Seddio, an attorney and a surrogate court judge for a year, was the chair of the Kings County Democratic Party from 2012 to 2020. Kings County Democratic County Committee<\/p>\n
Investors, like her clients, were asked to deposit funds in an escrow account \u2014 managed by an allegedly independent third party, escrow agent Mark David Graubard \u2014 to prove they had enough cash to close a potential deal along with a signed agreement that they could get the money back anytime, the suit states.<\/p>\n
Escrow agents have special fiduciary obligations to depositors, and are bound to follow escrow agreements.<\/p>\n
But when the investors decided that the deal was not for them and requested their cash back, delays and excuses allegedly flowed from Graubard \u2014 even when attorneys simply asked to confirm he still had the $2 million, according to emails filed in state court.<\/p>\n
At one point, Graubard appears to have sent a number confirming a wire transfer, but the funds were never sent, the court documents state.<\/p>\n
Graubard and Sprei then allegedly offered the investors a conditional release of the escrow money if they agreed not to file suit, prompting them to report the ostensible theft to police, according to the suit.<\/p>\n
A paid of foregin investors have sued Seddio and others in Brooklyn Federal Court, accusing them of participating in a scheme to illegally withhold money in escrow. REUTERS<\/p>\n
Seddio, meanwhile, allegedly filed \u201ca completely bogus action in Kings County Supreme Court\u201d on behalf of Sprei, demanding a restraining order to block its return, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Instead of trying to get the case tossed, Zimmerman and her firm went to court, and for a moment, they appeared to have a judge sympathetic to their clients\u2019 cause.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy aren\u2019t we hearing anything about where the money is,\u201d said judge Steven Mostofsky during a July hearing. \u201cSimple question, where is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
Frank Seddio did not respond to a list of questions sent to him. Paul Martinka<\/p>\n
\u201cI never sanctioned anybody in my entire legal career but this is $2 million dollars and you are putting your client in serious, serious trouble because he is holding on to an escrow and no one knows where it is,\u201d the judge told a lawyer associated with Graubard.<\/p>\n
Graubard \u2014 who the judge ordered to deposit the funds to the court a few days earlier \u2014 could have just showed up with a check, Mostofsky added.<\/p>\n
But Seddio then allegedly bizarrely stepped in to help hire an attorney for Graubard \u2014 that he knew would force the judge to recuse himself, just minutes before another hearing over the suit, according to the federal court papers.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s despite Seddio technically being on the opposite side of Graubard as he was suing him and the investors on behalf of Sprei, the court documents note.<\/p>\n
The suit against Seddio and others claims that at least a half-dozen other court cases describe similar schemes to theirs. Kings County Democratic County Committee<\/p>\n
But, minutes before the hearing, he had a new lawyer with some sort of relationship with Mostofsky \u2014 a move Seddio takes credit for in the hearing, despite technically being on the opposite side of Graubard.<\/p>\n
The new judge has proven to be far less aggressive, with little action in the case since the summer, despite the still-in-place judicial order to deposit the missing millions with the court, according to the federal filing.<\/p>\n
Zimmerman\u2019s law firm, Selendy Gay PLLC, says it has ID\u2019ed at least a half-dozen similar cases involving the same crew where \u201cinvestor money is being illegally withheld, and Mr. Sprei and his associates have held up the cases over the funds\u2019 return,\u201d the attorney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNotably, Mr. Seddio is often the attorney representing Mr. Sprei or his associates,\u201d Zimmerman told The Post. \u201cIn some instances, Mr. Seddio is even a named defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Graubard, who is also named in the federal suit, did not reply to requests for comment.<\/p>\n
The effect of Seddio\u2019s alleged \u201csham lawsuits\u2026is that it makes the victims\u2019 attempts to defend their rights in court so expensive and so time consuming that ultimately, it may not be worth pursuing their lost funds,\u201d Zimmerman said.<\/p>\n
The aggrieved investors \u201cpreviously admired American courts\u2019 commitment to the rule of law,\u201d but now claim that the experience has turned them cold to the American court system.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDefendants\u2019 seeming ability to get away with a heist of $2 million in broad daylight, through transparent lies and abuses of legal process, makes a mockery of those ideals. It must be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Longtime Democratic power broker Frank Seddio is an alleged \u201ccon artist\u201d who used his political influence to help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,11827,100,99,651,68,3309,2850,57,9,24,63,58],"class_list":["post-24524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-federal-court","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-democratic-party","tag-exclusive","tag-frank-seddio","tag-lawsuits","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}