{"id":655722,"date":"2026-03-14T19:17:42","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T19:17:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655722\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T19:17:42","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T19:17:42","slug":"bronx-man-says-childhood-friend-scammed-him-others-out-of-millions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/655722\/","title":{"rendered":"Bronx man says childhood friend scammed him, others out of millions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Screensho004_1710722673841\"\t\t\t<\/p>\n

A property owned by James McManus in New Milford, C.T., which he alleges his friend has used a scam assest management company to force him to make millions of dollars in unlawful payments on. <\/p>\n

Provided by James McManus<\/p>\n

A Bronx man says his childhood friend leveraged his criminal history to scam him out of millions of dollars with the help of a sham property asset management company, accusing him in Manhattan federal court of running a yearslong racketeering scheme.\u00a0<\/p>\n

James McManus says his childhood friend, John Lettera, \u201cfinancially crippled\u201d him after he took loans out from Lettera\u2019s asset management company, Fairbridge Asset Management LLC<\/a>, to develop his properties on McGraw Avenue in The Bronx and New Milford, Connecticut. McManus alleges Lettera deceived and coerced him into a series of fraudulent loan transactions between 2021 and 2025, extracting millions of dollars in payments McManus thought he was putting toward his loans and mortgages on the properties. In fact, the suit says, Lettera was pocketing the funds himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, McManus said, he defaulted on his loans and mortgages, pushing him into foreclosure proceedings where Lettera would eventually take ownership of the buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Andrew Laufer, McManus\u2019s attorney, told amNewYork Law that, through Fairbridge, Lettera would consistently harass McManus for payments under false pretenses, frequently giving confusing, aggressive instructions.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point, [McManus] made a payment of a million dollars for one thing, then they said it was for another thing, then they said it was for a third thing,\u201d Laufer said. \u201cIt\u2019s a shell game. It\u2019s structuring a default, it\u2019s predatory, it\u2019s racketeering. It\u2019s insane what occurred here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys for Lettera \u2014 Robert Alessi, Matthew Ross and Preston Scherr of Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone \u2014 declined to comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laufer said the suit likely will seek $50 million in damages, citing money lost in direct payments McManus made to Lettera as well as emotional and physical distress McManus experienced. McManus said Lettera harassing him for payments and destabilizing him financially led to heart issues that landed him in the hospital and with high medical bills.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"James McManus, who is suing John Lettera on federal racketeering charges. Provided by James McManus<\/p>\n

McManus alleges that Lettera has scammed dozens of people in similar ways, choosing clients\u00a0 who seemed unlikely to figure out his scheme and fight back. He likened the business structure to that of a \u201crun-of-the-mill organized crime racketeering operation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

McManus posits that Lettera scammed him because he thought McManus wouldn\u2019t bring him to court, since they were friends \u2014 and because McManus has a negative history with the court system. He served eight years of federal time in the 1990s after being convicted on racketeering charges himself, and feels Lettera took advantage of his inability to get loans from other places.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not really bankable. I have a judgment on my head,\u201d McManus said in an interview, referring to his past charges. \u201cI can\u2019t go to any regular bank and get a loan \u2026 [Lettera] said \u2018Don\u2019t worry about it. I got you, I\u2019ll lend you money.\u2019 They took advantage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Laufer said, his client is turning over a new leaf and doesn\u2019t want to \u201ctake this lying down.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cHe acknowledges his past. He\u2019s paid his debt to society, and he\u2019s trying to build his life back,\u201d Laufer said.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u2018They\u2019ve done this before\u2019<\/b><\/p>\n

Laufer said at least three people have reached out to him since McManus filed the suit, claiming Lettera similarly scammed them when they took loans out on their properties through Fairbridge, which was previously known as RealFi Private Lending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear that they\u2019ve done this before,\u201d Laufer said. \u201cThey were robbing my client of money. They were robbing my client of his property. This is what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he believed there was potential for a class action suit to arise against Lettera and Fairbridge in the future.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

McManus also says Fairbridge was borrowing against and obtaining credit lines through investment management companies like Oaktree, Churchill Asset Management and Nuveen, which manage the retirement accounts of millions of teachers, valued at $2.5 trillion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By alleging scamming their borrowers while using credit lines from those companies, Laufer says Lettera is opening up those companies to massive lawsuits and hundreds of millions of dollars of losses, as well as putting teacher retirement programs at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Laufer and McManus said they hope the suit stops Lettera and Fairbridge from taking advantage of property owners and loan companies.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of the people that they put into this position, a lot of people they target, they\u2019re so drained at the end of the day,\u201d Laufer said.\u201d They\u2019re left with nothing. We\u2019re standing up, and we\u2019re gonna get justice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A property owned by James McManus in New Milford, C.T., which he alleges his friend has used a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":655723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,3228,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,10558,158734,5305,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-655722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-law","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-newyork","13":"tag-newyorkcity","14":"tag-ny","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-property","17":"tag-rico","18":"tag-the-bronx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116229141164355957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655722","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=655722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}