{"id":390615,"date":"2025-11-19T19:59:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T19:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/390615\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T19:59:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T19:59:23","slug":"nycs-madoff-of-landlords-steven-croman-defaults-on-170m-loans-suits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/390615\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC’s ‘Madoff of landlords’ Steven Croman defaults on $170M loans: suits"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City\u2019s\u00a0\u201cBernie Madoff of landlords\u201d\u00a0<\/a>has defaulted on nearly $170 million in loans \u2014 and is facing foreclosure on a whopping 35 or so Manhattan properties, new court records show.<\/p>\n

Steven Croman, a longtime notorious landlord and convicted fraudster \u2014\u00a0who did a stint on Rikers Island<\/a>\u00a0more than a decade ago \u2014 is facing another reckoning, but this time in civil court.<\/p>\n

A bevy of lawsuits filed recently filed against Croman in Manhattan Supreme Court claim he is in default on $168 million worth of real estate loans.<\/p>\n

Steve Croman, who pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud a decade ago, now faces default notices totaling nearly $170 million. Stephen Yang<\/p>\n

Croman initially took the loans from New York Community Bank, then to Flagstar Bank\u00a0after a 2022 merger<\/a>, but they were reassigned last\u00a0month to a new lender Orange Owner LLC.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They\u00a0allege\u00a0that the real estate tycoon for months has failed to make payments at many of his properties, and owes millions on some of the buildings.<\/p>\n

Croman held a massive portfolio of 140 buildings when he was busted in 2016 for filing fraudulent paperwork to receive tens of millions in illicit bank loans, according to prosecutors at the time.<\/p>\n

Dubbed \u201cthe Bernie Madoff of landlords\u201d by then-state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Croman was also accused of using a\u00a0former NYPD officer to harass tenants<\/a>\u00a0into leaving their units \u2014 allowing him to jack up the rent on unwitting New Yorkers.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud<\/a>\u00a0in 2017, and spent a year behind bars on Rikers Island.<\/p>\n

Croman is facing default on his $12.4 million loan at 209 E. 25th St., where rents can reach nearly $5,500 a month. Google Maps<\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0Crain\u2019s reported\u00a0<\/a>that Croman was being sued by\u00a0Orange Owner\u00a0for allegedly defaulting on a total of $71.5 million in loans tied to five different buildings.<\/p>\n

But the amount Croman is alleged to be in default has since grown by nearly $100 million, according to the now-20 lawsuits filed this month.<\/p>\n

Those include a $12.4 million loan at 209 E. 25th St., a 44-unit building in Kips Bay where rents can reach nearly $5,500 a month, the bank claimed.<\/p>\n

One of the city\u2019s most notorious landlords, Croman was sent to Rikers Island for a year.<\/p>\n

Croman allegedly fell two months behind on his mortgage payments on that property, totaling $493,845 \u2014 with over half due to late fees and other charges, the bank claimed in an October notice.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also demands\u00a0that Croman repay the full $10.37 million mortgage on 346 E. 18th St. in Gramercy Park, where rents range from $7,500 to nearly $10,000 a month.<\/p>\n

Croman allegedly fell behind on his October loan payment on that property, owing $362,332 with late fees, filings claim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bank claims that Croman is in default of his $10.37 million mortgage at 346 E. 18th St. in Gramercy Park, where rents can reach nearly $10,000 a month. Google Maps<\/p>\n

Croman\u2019s largest default is $21.4 million for a pair of Christopher Street buildings in the West Village.<\/p>\n

That suit claims the convicted fraudster ceased making payments back in August, with arrears totaling $1.2 million at the end of October.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Crain\u2019s reported that Croman has faced a number of other foreclosure actions, with roughly an additional allegedly $45.5 million in defaults.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for both Croman and\u00a0Orange Owner\u00a0did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s\u00a0\u201cBernie Madoff of landlords\u201d\u00a0has defaulted on nearly $170 million in loans \u2014 and is facing foreclosure…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":390616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,259,336,10476,5248,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,10204,185926,67,586,132,5230,68,1154,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-390615","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-banks","10":"tag-lawsuits","11":"tag-manhattan-supreme-court","12":"tag-metro","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-newyork","16":"tag-newyorkcity","17":"tag-ny","18":"tag-nyc","19":"tag-residential-real-estate","20":"tag-steven-croman","21":"tag-united-states","22":"tag-united-states-of-america","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-us-news","27":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115578140704367278","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390615\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/390616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}