The swanky co-op is home to Wall Street tycoons, Michael J. Fox, a Rockefeller scion, and heirs to massive fortunes.
In the foyer of his 12-room co-op overlooking Central Park, financier Clifford Press is hunched over, trying to persuade his 14-pound Jack Russell to stop showing her belly. Behind him, sunlight streaks through the cavernous living room, adorned with gold mirrors, hardwood floors, and a working fireplace.
“We were shocked by the extent of corruption,” Press, 70, added in his deep Johannesburg accent. He is not listed as a plaintiff because the apartment is in Sawyer’s name, owing to an “estate-planning gimmick” from the 1990s. He is, however, the more vocal combatant. In a statement, Michael Pensabene, the co-op’s outside counsel, disputed the accusations against the board: “This meritless lawsuit was brought by a disgruntled co-op resident for the sole purpose of harassing her neighbors, who voluntarily serve the building on the co-op’s board. This is a flagrant abuse of judicial process and we are confident that this frivolous complaint will be promptly dismissed.
Just under a century old, 1120 Fifth Ave. has 45 units, meaning that its 11-person board holds significant influence over building-wide votes when its members stick together. “It sounds very, if you will, democratic,” Stein said. “But when you have a large board like that, it can often go in the other direction… if the board coalesces around one point of view.”
“All kinds of documentation keeps getting lost after about five years,” a current resident told The Daily Beast. “Everything should have been on emails.” Other residents have endured their own controversies. In 2022, Press resigned from the publicly traded financial firm Acacia Research after he was told about an investigation into “potential instances of misconduct that could qualify for a termination for cause,” athat an independent legal investigation had confirmed that Press “provided inaccurate information regarding certain corporate expenses and misused corporate funds for personal use, including travel and entertainment expenses.
Sawyer said in the lawsuit that the board “surreptitiously” sent a letter to her mortgage lender in January 2021 alleging that she was more than $45,000 in default on maintenance payments and other dues, and that the board intended to “commence a non-payment eviction proceeding.” The new lawsuit reiterates many of the same allegations as the earlier one, though Sawyer has added additional details and claims. She accuses the board of diverting co-op funds into “personal renovation projects” and obscuring legal expenses. She also devotes significant time to Breglio, whose cousin Kenny was awarded a $500,000 elevator modernization contract in 2019, painting the bidding process as corrupt, despite John Breglio’s insistence that he recused himself.
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