Tayyib Bosque, a former broker at Charles Rutenberg Realty on Long Island, claims he was squeezed out of a $750,000 commission by the brokerage and various players involved in the sale of the Herald Square Hotel.
Bosque, who says he was fired in July, accused his former employer and fellow brokers of stiffing him out of his cut on the June transaction in a lawsuit. Mitchell Holdings acquired the 96-key hotel at 19-21 West 31st Street from the Puchall family for $38.5 million.
In a complaint filed in the New York State Supreme Court in Bronx County, Bosque claims he brought the seller to Rutenberg, having previously represented the Puchalls while working at Itzhaki Properties.
The commission paid by the seller for such deals is usually between 3 and 4 percent of the sales price, Bosque claims. Given his lead role on the deal, Bosque, whose Twitter handle is @LatinTrump, alleges he was owed 65 percent of the total commission on the seller’s side.
In July, Bosque received a termination notice from the brokerage for alleged failure to pay a broker’s license fee, according to his lawyer David Broderick.
Bosque told The Real Deal he is no longer working in real estate and is instead building a wine import business.
Defendants include both Long Island-based Charles Rutenberg Realty Inc. and Manhattan-based Charles Rutenberg LLC. The firms are technically separate companies, not franchises. Joseph Moshe, however, runs the Long Island company and is a co-owner of the New York City office. He was named along with management staff Richard Diller and Ruth Pfeffer, Rutenberg NYC broker Robert Skinner and the Puchall family.
At the time of the deal, Skinner claimed he represented the seller, but could not be reached for comment.
A representative for Charles Rutenberg Realty declined to comment because the firm had not fully reviewed the lawsuit.