Former Pacha owner bidding for Verboten's lease

  • Published
    Fri, Jun 10, 2016, 16:30
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  • The owners of the bankrupt Williamsburg club are auctioning off the lease to pay back their debt.
  • Former Pacha owner bidding for Verboten's lease image
  • Verboten's owners are auctioning off their lease at 54 North 11th Street in Brooklyn. Jen Schiffer and her husband John Perez filed for bankruptcy in March when their club was seized for unpaid taxes. Only a few days later Schiffer was arrested for allegedly writing fraudulent checks. Gothamist reports that they're now auctioning Verboten's lease to cover some of their debt. The highest bidder is Eddie Dean, former owner of Manhattan nightclub Pacha, which closed in January. His bid for the lease is $400,000, which is $40,000 more than what Schiffer and Perez owe the state for nonpayment of sales tax. There are a few other parties who may be vying for the lease, including a group of investors and former employees who want to "purchase the assets out of bankruptcy and fund a continuation of the Brooklyn Events business in a new corporation." The deadline to submit a bid is July 13th, and the court hearing for the sale of the lease is scheduled to go down on July 20th. Gothamist also says that on May 26th, the US Trustee supervising the bankruptcy case, William K. Harrington, made a motion to the court to switch Schiffer's Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing to Chapter 7. What that would mean is that the business is beyond the possibility of financial reorganization due to "gross mismanagement" on the part of its owners. If the conversion to Chapter 7 goes through, Schiffer will no longer have control of the estate and the club will be forced to close.
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