Hedge-fund manager Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher has finally found a law firm to represent him just four weeks before he is slated to make his racial-discrimination case against the famous Dakota co-op on Central Park.
Fletcher, who is African American, has run through at least three law firms in the two years since he sued the Dakota board in state Supreme Court in Manhattan after it denied his request to purchase a fifth apartment in the building, where he lives with his wife, child and mother.
Floyd Saunders, president of Fletcher’s bankrupt hedge fund, has signed on to represent his boss. Fletcher has also hired Cohen & Gresser, a 10-year-old boutique law firm. The lead attorney in the case, Nathaniel Read, joined from Quinn Emanual Urquhart & Sullivan, the firm representing the Dakota.
The Dakota cited “red flags” indicating that Fletcher was not able to afford the apartment — a view that proved prescient. Last June, his hedge fund, Fletcher International, filed for bankruptcy and is now under the control of a federal trustee.
Ironically, Fletcher’s largest creditor is law firm Proskauer Rose, to whom the fund owes more than $1 million. The law firm was founded by the father of the late Ruth Proskauer Smith, whose apartment Fletcher wants to buy. He is also suing her estate.
Another creditor is Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, which is owed $293,516. It was one of two firms set to represent Fletcher that received permission from the court to withdraw from the case. The other was Vladeck, Waldman, Elias & Engelhard. All the firms either did not return calls or declined to comment. Fletcher did not return a call.