Real estate lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey allegedly told a tenant he was “worthless” and that he should “commit suicide,” according to a new lawsuit leveled against the prominent attorney in Manhattan Supreme Court.
James Dawson, a former resident at Lalezarian Properties’ 100 Maiden Lane, is suing Bailey for malpractice, the New York Post reported. Dawson clashed with Bailey, who represents Lalezarian, after Dawson accused Lalezarian of showing his unit to potential tenants without notice, court papers show.
In August, Bailey [TRDataCustom] accused Dawson of setting up the site Lalezarianfraud.com, which accused Lalezarian of “screwing over tenants.” Dawson, however, denies having anything to do with the site, according to his lawsuit. But Bailey said that unless Dawson took the site down, he’d be hit with a $10 million defamation suit.
Bailey is accused of making the explosive comments when Dawson called the lawyer at his Lower Manhattan office in September. In the phone conversation, which Dawson recorded, Bailey allegedly said, “welcome to my world, now you’re my bitch.”
He goes on to say, according to the suit, that he thinks Dawson “should commit suicide,” and that he is “one of those people in the world that should really just kill yourself because you’re worthless”. During the recorded phone call, which was obtained by the Post, Bailey allegedly says: “Can you Google me? Please Google me to understand just so we don’t have to go too far to see what I’m going to do to you.”
Dawson told the paper that “as a licensed practicing attorney, there was zero basis for Bailey to say and do what he did.”
Bailey shot to fame in the real estate world in the wake of the market crash of 2008 by helping condo buyers get out of their contracts at troubled projects using a little-known provision known as ILSA. His firm, which represents a wide variety of developers, landlords and tenants, recently took a 26,000-square-foot space at at One Battery Park Plaza.
Bailey did not respond to requests for comment. [NYP] — Miriam Hall