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In the civil justice system, corporate fraud crimes are considered especially egregious. But the actors who play the dedicated NYPD detectives can’t know that one of their luxury condos will end up in the hands of a Georgian con man. This is his story.
Law & Order: SVU Star Chris Meloni’s former New York City apartment is now at the center of a serious legal drama. It has become the hideout of a fracking industry scammer who cheated a business partner in Texas, lost a court case there, and has been dodging the $1 million judgment for so long that he now owes three times as much.
David Sepiachvili and Natalia Sapir Antonni bought the actor’s condo in Midtown Manhattan for $8.15 million eight years ago, according to the observer. But on Friday, a scorned Russian investor named Nikolay Rastorguev defendant The couple in New York state court, saying Sepiachvili is now playing role-playing games to avoid losing the massive four-bedroom apartment on prime real estate located just a block from Carnegie Hall.
The lawsuit says Sepiachvili recently transferred ownership of the condo to Antonni to avoid the payment, which has now ballooned with interest to $3 million.
Sepiachvili, a native of Russia’s neighboring country Georgia, got into serious financial trouble shortly after purchasing the actor’s condo. According federal court documents obtained by The Daily Beast, accepted $800,000 in July 2016 from Rastorguev in exchange for shares in an oil and gas trading company called Austin Chalk Development Project. But a court found that instead of fulfilling his end of the deal and acquiring the land he had promised to buy, the money was diverted in other directions, and Rastorguev never got it back.
Harper Estes, a Texas attorney who acts as a private judge when people resolve legal issues in arbitration, reviewed the case for a federal court and determined in 2021 that it was “run-of-the-mill fraud.” But she also called it a “rare case that supports the claim of civil conspiracy.”
“Knowledge of the oil and gas industry or use of land brokerage companies cannot and does not in any way justify taking another person’s funds under false pretenses and using the funds for other purposes” , wrote.
The arbitrator also noted something else: The scheme involved a company called Level One Advisors and another man with a similar name, David A. Sepiashvili. That confusing twist points to a New York Republican political operative who serves as the GOP district’s elected leader in Brooklyn and formerly job for the city’s electoral board. That second Sepiashvili, this time spelled with an “s,” is included on the list LinkedIn as founder and president of Level One, highlighting the company’s involvement in the Austin Chalk and calling it an “unconventional oil and gas development project.” Calls, texts and social media messages to that second man with a similar name went unanswered Monday.
However, it appears that the money was never paid. When a year passed, the Russian continued in 2022 for suing both men in Brooklyn, quickly gaining a judgment in state court.
The Russian is resorting to this third attempt by suing in Manhattan state court and trying to get a judge to intervene by preventing the first Sepiachvili from changing the status of owner of the condominium and ordering its immediate sale to pay the outstanding debt.
Contacted on Monday, Sepiachvili declined to provide details about his long-running legal headache, simply referring to his despised business partner Rastorguev as a guy connected to some “bad people in Russia.”
“He’s an idiot,” Sepiachvili said.