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Rechnitz’s Righteous Gemstones & RFR's One-Click Salvation

Amazon's Abynomics, Ackerman exits Greystone & Brookfield loses megacomplex

Author

Hiten Samtani
May 02, 2025

Rechnitz’s Righteous Gemstones

Jona Rechnitz, who was at the heart of an NYC corruption scandal, is now facing heat in LA (Headline via New York Daily News)

“Let me get the fuckin' opal, man.” - Kevin Garnett, Uncut Gems

Who is Jona Rechnitz? Depending on whom you ask (and when), the answer could be diamond dealer, Mayweather whisperer, political macher, cad, bully, scam artist, celeb magnet, family man, real estate developer, crypto hustler, and even, per an Assistant US Attorney, “one of the single most important and prolific white collar cooperating witnesses in the recent history of the Southern District of New York.” For years, Rechnitz hustled in New York real estate, an industry defined by gray areas, before becoming a central figure in a major NYPD corruption scandal in which he narrowly escaped prison time. Then, like Fievel Mousekewitz 🐭 , he headed West to reinvent himself, this time as a diamond dealer to the stars. But old habits die hard.

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Rechnitz (Cont.)

Back in his hometown of Los Angeles, Rechnitz has once again become a figure of controversy, accused of fraud, theft, and other financial misconduct, according to an astonishing new profile from The Atavist. There have been at least 13 suits filed against Rechnitz or his companies since his L.A. move, the publication reported: Jewelers alleged he stole $7M worth of gems 💎; he’s facing a class-action suit over his role promoting a cryptocurrency that went belly-up; one of his creditors alleges that Rechnitz has threatened his family, and on and on. Comeuppance has yet to really find him, though – the courts have only ruled against him in 2 of the suits. I can’t do this ripper of an article justice in this space – honestly, go read it – but here are a few highlights.

  • While working for Lev Leviev’s Africa Israel, Rechnitz cultivated such juice w/ the NYPD (through Jeremy Reichberg, a liaison between the force and Borough Park’s frum community) that when Leviev came into town, Rechnitz was able to get his boss a police escort from his private plane 🛩️ 🚓 

  • Met boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. at a 🏀 game and cultivated a tight friendship w/ him that saw Mayweather become a hype man for Rechnitz’s jewelry brand (Jadelle). Mayweather’s recent rush of real estate dealmaking may also have been shepherded in part by Rechnitz, sources told The Promote in Nov. 🥊 

  • One of the key characters in the saga is Victor Franco Noval, a controversial guy in Beverly Hills for his involvement in a notorious development site known as The Mountain – another great rabbit hole

  • “Jona’s pretty much judgment-proof,” Andrew Smith, a lawyer repping a Miami jeweler who sued Rechnitz over a Mayweather-related deal, told the publication. “He is the Jewish John Gotti.”

RFR’s One-Click Checkout

RFR has sold a distressed Fifth Ave tower, reportedly to Amazon

Time to update the win-loss ledger on RFR: As we noted in a recent edition, the Aby Rosen & Michael Fuchs-led firm has been mitigating major setbacks (losing the Chrysler to fee owner Cooper Union, losing 285 Madison to its Korean mezz lender) w/ triumphs (refi’ng the single-malt Seagram, recapping 475 Fifth, selling the W South Beach). The latest win comes at 522 Fifth, a 600K sf Bryant Park office tower where RFR had been battling foreclosure. Sensing 🩸 in the 🌊 , SL Green 🦈 had put itself in a position to take control by snapping up the $224M debt on the tower for 60¢/$ in Sept.; SLG subsidiary Green Loan had been servicing the debt, which is one of those incestuous things that seems to always happen in NYC real estate.

Anyway, RFR has put all that to bed by selling the tower to an owner-occupier for an undisclosed price, it announced today. TRD reported that the buyer is Amazon, which the firm later confirmed. Makes sense given the e-comm giant’s ravenous recent appetite for NYC space – both directly and through a partnership w/ WeWork – and the tower’s proximity to Amazon 🗽 HQ at 424 Fifth. Remember that Amazon is now a 5day/week in-office company, a move w/ significant implications for the leasing market. For RFR, a sale to Amazon rhymes somewhat w/ what it did at 980 Madison, which it sold to Bloomberg Philanthropies for $560M last June.

Shayanara: Agency Rainmaker Out at Greystone 

Less than a year since joining Greystone, Shaya Ackerman is abruptly out

Shaya Ackerman, who joined Greystone less than a year ago to beef up its agency-lending biz, is out, The Promote has learned. Sources described his departure as abrupt – he was credited on a BTR deal as recently as mid-April – and it’s still unclear whether he left or was asked to leave. Ackerman came to the firm last May after leaving Meridian Capital Group, and was known to work closely w/ top HUD rainmaker Donny Rosenberg (son to Greystone founder & ceo Stephen, and someone whose deals, per agency insiders, are being scrutinized). Quick context on the sitch at Greystone, surely more deets will emerge: Fannie recently revoked Greystone’s Performance Differentiation privileges – think of it like the Lightning Lane at Disney – a setback that makes the firm less competitive in that rather commoditized space. This happened after a pattern of what the agency saw as problematic deals (fuzzy rent rolls, sketch sponsors, etc.)

Surrender to Lender: Brookfield Loses Houston Complex

Brookfield has walked away from a mammoth Houston office complex after defaulting on the $219M mezz. Brookfield paid $875M in ‘17 for the 4.6M sf, 4-building Houston Center complex and souped it up, but has struggled w/ a tenant exodus. The new owner will be the mezz lender, Aussie pension fund AustralianSuper, which has tapped CRE services firm Stream Realty Partners to manage the asset. In a sign of the times, Stream had launched a “value preservation” division to work on such distressed deals last summer – the grandiose press release on the launch makes for fun reading.

Quick note here – both the Houston BJ & CoStar (“now, the firm is passing the torch to a pair of investors eager to capitalize” 🤮 ) are framing the deal as a sale, but it looks like a lender takeback, as Bisnow notes here - a Brookfield rep told the outlet that “we’ve structured a mutually beneficial deal.” The way the big boys finesse the framing on their distressed stuff is something to closely watch for – Blackstone’s “less than 2% of our portfolio is US office” being the classic example. Brookfield is having better luck elsewhere in Houston, though – the firm recently renewed Aramco 🛢️ subsidiary Motiva to 221K sf at One Allen Center.   

Quickies

Unquotable Quotes

“Tell me the rules and I’ll play by the rules. But I need to know what the rules are.” 🎯 🏸 📐 
- Camden Property Trust’s Ric Campo, on wanting tariff clarity before making CRE moves