Meyer Chetrit Details Dire State of Company in Deposition

Newly revealed testimony by Meyer Chetrit paints a dim picture of the family real estate empire that once counted a portfolio valued at nearly $1 billion.

In depositions dating back to March and April, Meyer detailed how the company he co-runs with Joseph Chetrit ran out of funds and supposedly ceased business dealings, Bisnow reported. The deposition was among several made public last week, according to Crain’s.

Meyer stated that the Chetrit Group’s portfolio was valued at negative $80 million, a far cry from its billion-dollar valuation it sported less than four years ago. That valuation came courtesy of calculations on a piece of paper, Meyer said in the deposition.

The depositions were released as part of Mack Real Estate Group’s legal suit against the Chetrit brothers. A Mack affiliate alleged the Chetrits defaulted on a $31.5 million mezzanine loan secured by the Hotel Carter, at 250 West 43rd Street. It pursued the pair for guaranty agreements, and a $24 million judgment was awarded to the lender in October 2025. The brothers are also facing a $7 million judgment awarded to a Mack affiliate in another case.

Earlier this month, the Mack affiliate said those judgments, totaling more than $31 million, “remain wholly unpaid.”

He said that he went into the office to “waste time,” claiming there was no business to be done for the company and talking about how an unpaid employee was fetching coffee and pie for him. He further claimed the company was being “dissolved,” though he said there wasn’t anybody who was actually spearheading such a process.

The Chetrit Group has continued to operate as a real estate entity in the months since the depositions. Just a few weeks ago, the company secured an $80 million refinancing loan on a warehouse at 57-18 Flushing Avenue in Maspeth, Queens; Maxim Capital Group and SL Green provided the financing in a three-year deal.

Meyer was deposed at least twice in the Hotel Carter case. During those depositions, he mentioned how one of his brothers, Juda, helped pay the family’s bills before claiming that “nobody” was supporting him.

He’s also been leaning on his children to help pay the bills, claiming to have taken $100,000 from them for living expenses last year.

Meyer said he owes attorneys, including lawyers from Rosenberg and Estes, a “couple million.” When asked if he anticipated paying his lawyers, including Leo Jacobs, who represented him at the deposition, Meyer responded, “with God’s help,” getting an “amen” on the record from Jacobs.

Meyer said the Chetrits have also not been paying investment advisor Robert Verrone, whose firm, Iron Hound, has worked out debt for the Chetrits. Meyer said Verrone (referred to as Barone in the court record) is a “friend” whom Meyer will pay “when I have it.”

Meyer has also borrowed money from men he knows through synagogue, telling attorneys he owes them a “couple hundred thousand.”

Joseph was also subpoenaed and deposed, but is still recovering from a pair of strokes he suffered more than a year ago, as well as hip replacement surgery in February that had a complication.

Meyer was previously ordered to pay a $132 million judgment to Maverick Real Estate Partners relating to 255 West 34th Street, a stalled and foreclosed-upon hotel property. Late last year, a city marshal garnished Meyer’s interests in several LLCs to pay off that judgment, selling them at auction to Maverick.

The Chetrit Group has also been battling lenders over 26 Broadway, a 29-story, Class A office tower that was transferred to special servicing, according to Morningstar.

At 500 and 512 Seventh Avenue, the Chetrit Group partnered with Edward Minskoff and Joseph Moinian. But last July, a lender accused the borrower of “intentional self-dealing,” transferring about $1 million of tenant security deposits to outside accounts, with about $300,000 transferred to accounts associated with other Chetrit projects or affiliates. That case is ongoing, though Meyer said in the deposition that the company had never paid rent at 512 Seventh and was “about to give the keys” over to the lender on the property.

Meyer and Joseph are also facing charges of tenant harassment from the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Lilah Burke contributed reporting.

— Holden Walter-Warner