A foreclosure suit over a Lower East Side hotel project took a dark turn when the debt-ridden developer threatened to rape and kill his adversaries, according to court papers.
Nassau County developer and Israeli military veteran Ben Zhavian allegedly sniped to the owner of the Orchard Hotel, which had bought out the loan on his stalled 16-story tower, that the hotel’s lawyer was a “whore’’ and “c–t,” and threatened to rape her.
The Sept. 13 phone call was followed by a confrontation with another Orchard Hotel owner in which the developer thundered, “I’ll kill you! . . . All of you are going to be shot!” according to legal papers.
Zhavian allegedly warned that he’d spent two years in the Israeli Defense Forces and that he knows “how to hurt people.”
Zhavian told The Post, “I never threatened anyone,” adding that the court was supposed to seal the case. Zhavian noted that his adversaries never reported his alleged threats to the police.