Recently there has been a good bit of news surrounding serial litigator Jody Kriss, a New York City real estate developer who used to be Wharton’s golden boy until he got caught up in the Mob mentality. Jody Kriss currently makes his living buying, renovating, and renting out brownstones and condos all over Brooklyn and Manhattan as a principal at East River Partners. But before starting East River Partners, Jody Kriss held the title of the world’s most oblivious chief financial officer.
Jody Kriss started his life as a low-level junior analyst with the Athena Group, assisting in the financing and development of one 838 Fifth Avenue, which currently sits as the headquarters for the Union for Reform Judaism. After a few years, he left Athena and joined APC Realty Advisors, where he was involved in several other projects for the company.
At some point, there was a magical jump in rank, and Jody Kriss quickly became a managing partner at Bayrock Group, and then made another massive jump, quickly sliding into the position of chief financial officer for the company. The idea was that there were a few shady characters in high positions with Bayrock Group, so Jody Kriss, who at the time was a relatively unknown Wharton graduate with a great reputation and a clean record, could act as a figurehead for Bayrock, and assist in ensuring that they had a sparkling image.
His father was brought in from Akerman Senterfitt, a prestigious New York City law firm, to handle the legal operations of the company. The father-son team now had ultimate control over both the financial end of Bayrock Group, as well as the legal end of operations. Jody Kriss and his father were all encompassing, and nothing should have slipped past their watchful eyes.
Suddenly, lawsuits start flying, and Jody Kriss is ousted from the company, along with his father. It started in Delaware Chancery Court, where Jody Kriss filed a lawsuit claiming that Bayrock Group had been embezzling millions of dollars, defrauding the IRS, and extorting money through threats. Dark questions arose surrounding Bayrock Group’s recent collaboration, the Trump SoHo, as well as other projects the company worked for. Jody Kriss, on the other hand, deleted all of his and his father’s emails from the company servers, stole a company hard drive containing attorney-client communications and federally-sealed documents, and disappeared into the world of the legal system.
How is it that the CFO of a company such as this would be completely innocent if the embezzlement of millions of dollars was occurring? With Jody Kriss as CFO, all financial decisions should flow through him, provided he was performing his job duties correctly. All legal decisions should have flowed through his father. What was the reason for deleting all his email correspondences and stealing a company hard drive before resorting to the Delaware, and eventually the New York, legal system?
Jody Kriss is, and has been for several years now through various frivolous lawsuits, claiming that he had no play in any schemes, yet still feels it necessary to make any evidence that he was even a part of Bayrock Group disappear. He accuses almost all of his co-workers at Bayrock Group of being heavily tied in with the Russian Mafia, and working a massive racketeering scheme through the company, yet Jody Kriss himself, a diligent employee and CFO, carried the responsibility of overseeing where every penny went within the organization.
Jody Kriss spent years at this position, and in this time fails to see any patterns, and is now all of a sudden cutting ties with Bayrock and suing them for upwards of a billion dollars, claiming innocence and ignorance?
Since being ousted from his CFO position, Jody Kriss has been tangled in several high-dollar lawsuits. In addition to two similar lawsuits against Bayrock himself, he also came after a former co-worker hiding behind the false plaintiff of a family of dead Holocaust survivors, using them as a pawn in his serial litigation scheme to squeeze as much cash as possible out of his former job. When he filed a high-profile billion dollar lawsuit against Bayrock and hundreds of others who were involved in the wheelings and dealings of the Trump SoHo, word started spreading fast about Jody Kriss.
A New York blogger by the name of Adam Lombardi wrote an article suggesting ties between Jody Kriss and the Russian Mob, seeing exactly what the rest of the world was seeing. Jody Kriss promptly sued him for $20 million as well. All the while attempting to start up his own real estate development empire, cutting corners left and right, using scummy tactics to get a quick payout, even endangering families and children with hazardous airborne irritants such as lead paint.
Oblivious? I think not. The past few years has done nothing more than prove that Jody Kriss is no more than a low-level scumbag, looking to use the New York legal system to fund his personal gain, and attempting to appear as an innocent party amidst Mob connections and flying lawsuits.
More information regarding this, as well as future posts and revelations on Jody Kriss dot com can be found at the following links:
Ex-Bayrock Exec Accused Of Mob Tactics in $5M Lawsuit – The Real Deal
Mob Rat Says Business Partner Tried To Nail Him Over $2.5M Suit – The New York Post
Real Estate Business Gets Ugly in NYC – Courthouse News
Jody Kriss, Ron Kriss & The Russian Mafia – Major Lawsuit Filed Today – Gambling911
Stroock’s Miami Managing Partner Caught Up In New York Suit – Daily Business Review
Lawsuit Filed Against Jody Kriss, Former Bayrock Executive & Founder of East River Partners – Market Watch
Federal Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed By Agents of Jody Kriss – Business Journals
Exposing Jody Kriss Subreddit
Judge clears the way for Bayrock conspiracy case to be heard in court – Real Estate Weekly
Ex-Mobster Accuses Stroock Atty’s Son Of Shakedown Plot – Law360
Onetime Informant Accuses Ex-Business Partner of Extortion – New York Law Journal
Kriss et al v. BayRock Group LLC et al – Plain Site
Jody Kriss of East River Partners Sued for Alleged “Billion-dollar Shakedown” – Bezinga
Lawsuit Filed Against Jody Kriss, Former Bayrock Executive & Founder of East River Partners – Court.us
Blogger Responds To Jody Kriss Notice To Sue – WN.com
Endangered 86th Street Residents Can Breathe a Sigh of Relief – Greenpoint Gazette
Billion-Dollar Plaintiff Jody Kriss’ Real Estate Company Settles Case Involving the Exposure of a Three Month Old Infant Tenant to Hazardous Materials With Payment of $1.6 Million – Jewocity
Jody Kriss of East River Partners Sued for Alleged “Billion-dollar Shakedown” – PRWeb