Developer Took Advantage Of East Harlem Church, Lawsuit Claims

EAST HARLEM, NY — An East Harlem church is accusing a developer of fraud, misrepresentation and misconduct in a 2014 deal that has turned into a disaster for the congregation and has put it at risk of closing permanently, according to a lawsuit filed this month in Manhattan supreme court.

St. Luke Baptist Church claims that the Azimuth Development Group "used its expertise to take advantage of a church whose unsuspecting nature and charitable parishioners left it vulnerable to the Defendants' predatory practice." St. Luke and Azimuth struck a deal in 2014 to redevelop the congregation's building on the corner of Park Avenue and East 130th Street by 2017, but construction at the site is still not complete two years after the deadline. The new building would provide St. Luke a new church, and Azimuth luxury condos on top of the house of worship.

The contract between the church and the developer entitled St. Luke to monthly payments of $20,833 each month the development ran behind schedule, according to the church's lawsuit. St. Luke never saw some of those payments because Azimuth conspired with the church's lawyer, who gambled the delay payments he was holding in escrow, the lawsuit claims.

That lawyer, John Shasanmi, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree grand larceny for diverting $600,000 intended for Harlem's Second Providence Baptist Church into his own personal bank accounts in 2014 in a similar land deal.

Lawyers for St. Luke allege that Azimuth colluded with Shasanmi, who was suffering from a gambling addiction, to ensure that the church entered into a deal that heavily favored Azimuth. After it was discovered that Shasanmi was gambling away payments meant for St Luke, Azimuth began paying delay payments directly to the church, but developer Guido Subotovsky told the church in June that the firm would no longer be making the payments.

"The combination of non-escalating Delay Payments over the years, the rising cost of rent and other expenses for St. Luke, a dwindling congregation due to space limitations in the temporary space, and now the complete stoppage of Delay Payments, has left the church in a dire financial situation," lawyers for St. Luke wrote in the lawsuit.

The church is asking the court for a temporary restraining order that will mandate Azimuth to continue making delay payments and halt all construction on the Park Avenue site unrelated to the completion of the new church. St. Luke is also asking for a judgement of at least $20 million in damages.

Azimuth's Guido Subotovsky told the Real Deal in an interview that the church's lawsuit is a "frivolous attempt to potentially extract something above and beyond what they are entitled to from us." The developer added that construction at the site is near completion