A drug-addled Manhattan real-estate executive raided his company’s coffers — including the employees’ health-care fund — to finance his Hamptons summer home and Upper East Side pad, a new lawsuit charges.
Bellmarc Group co-founder Neil Binder embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for the $5 million waterfront Westhampton residence and $12,000-a-month East 90th Street pad — and even no-show jobs for relatives, according to the $2 million lawsuit.
The married, 62-year-old Binder’s behavior is now threatening to sink the 35-year-old company, which has more than 600 employees, says the suit filed by his business partners, Anthony DeGrotta and Larry Friedman.
DeGrotta and Friedman say Binder has been popping so much Adderall and other pills that he is either “completely incoherent” or “incessantly screams and yells within in the office.”
Binder, also an author of real-estate books, has “utilized as his personal piggy bank a … sacrosanct health-insurance escrow account,” withdrawing around $88,000 to “finance his mounting personal debts and a lavish lifestyle,” the suit says.
The Queens native owes $69,000 to the IRS and $1.8 million to Signature bank, according to court papers.
He also paid wife Nina Scerbo’s design firm more than $9,000 without an invoice for any services allegedly rendered, gave his daughter a real-estate commission even though she’s not a licensed broker and doles out a salary to his sister, who is “incapable of performing substantive work,” the suit says.
Binder even swiped $276,000 set aside to pay Coldwell Banker franchise fees and wrote himself a $281,000 check for unspecified expenses, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court filing.
Saul Bruh, DeGrotta’s and Friedman’s lawyer, told The Post that the suit makes “a lot of allegations that are going to be supported by the evidence.”
The exec’s spokeswoman said, “Mr. Binder has been engaged in a business dispute with his partners that unfortunately has escalated into unfounded personal attacks. These allegations are entirely without merit and Mr. Binder intends to contest them vigorously.”