Lawsuit: Cushman & Wakefield, Adams Ally Conspired To Oust Brokerage From City Leasing Deals

The relationship between commercial real estate services giant Cushman & Wakefield and the New York City official in charge of the city's real estate decisions has come under fresh scrutiny after a bombshell lawsuit was filed in Manhattan’s Supreme Court this week.

Jesse Hamilton, the deputy commissioner for real estate services at NYC’s Department of Citywide Administrative Services, pushed for a Cushman & Wakefield broker with whom he has a personal relationship to be put in charge of the city's lucrative account, disregarding more qualified candidates, according to the complaint, filed by NYC-based JRT Realty. 

JRT, a woman-owned real estate services firm, is suing Cushman & Wakefield for defamation and interfering in its relationship with its client. JRT had a deal with Cushman to manage the city's real estate deals and collect roughly 34% of the commissions as the minority-owned business enterprise, according to the suit.

But last year, it was iced out of conversations and future deals, it claims, “at the behest of Jesse Hamilton.” Hamilton sought to install Cushman broker Diana Boutross at the helm of the “extremely profitable” $1.5B account, telling Cushman that its “account would be taken away” if Boutross was not put in charge of the city’s 22M SF of leases in privately-owned buildings, the suit alleges.

Cushman & Wakefield denied the allegations.

“Any change in our work with JRT was driven by the City’s amended requirements for working with MWBE businesses, as well as other legitimate commercial reasons,” a Cushman spokesperson told Bisnow in a statement. “Now that we have a copy of the complaint, we will review and respond accordingly.”

DCAS and JRT didn't immediately respond to Bisnow’s requests for comment.

Under NYC law, contracts between city agencies and private businesses must meet quotas for minority-, woman- or black-owned business participation — meaning companies contracted with the city generally have to have an agreement in place with a certified M/WBE in order to be eligible.

JRT Realty, founded by Jodi Pulice, has served as the M/WBE representative for Cushman on the DCAS account since 2012, according to the suit, although the two firms have had a strategic agreement in place since 2003. The city’s M/WBE requirements mean that Cushman “would not have won the contract” for the DCAS account in 2011 or 2016 “without JRT,” the firm claims.

The relationship soured in August 2023, according to the filing. That's when Cushman’s former head of the DCAS account, Robert Giglio, was replaced with Boutross, a broker whose experience is largely concentrated in retail, prior to Giglio’s planned retirement at the end of 2023.

Around 10 senior Cushman brokers with experience in government and office leases applied to replace Giglio and were “furious” that Boutross — who “did not submit her resume or any other paperwork for the position” — had been appointed, the suit claims.

The brokerage’s former Tri-State chairman and president John Santora “mentioned to JRT” that the city would take the account away if Boutross wasn’t put in charge. Hamilton allegedly said the same thing to Cushman, according to the filing. Santora left Cushman last year to take over as CEO of WeWork.

Cushman told city officials that JRT was removed from the account for “performance issues,” according to the filing. JRT claims it had never been made aware of any such issues, arguing that the claim was intended to stop JRT from competing for city contracts.

“I’m very troubled by what I’ve learned,” Carmine Castellano, a partner at Hodgson Russ and the lawyer representing JRT in the complaint, told Bisnow by phone Wednesday. “This could happen to any M/WBE, if this is happening to the  largest certified woman-owned real estate company in the United States.”

Hamilton and Boutross, along with Adams’ then-chief adviser Ingrid Lewis-Martin, were among a group that had their phones seized by investigators at John F. Kennedy International Airport after returning from a trip in September.

Lewis-Martin resigned in December after being charged with bribery and third-degree money laundering in a separate investigation. Her attorney told Bisnow in October that Lewis-Martin and Boutross are close friends and were returning from a vacation in Japan when their phones were taken.

“There were eight friends who decided to go to one of the biggest tourist countries in the world to just explore on a long-planned friendship trip,” attorney Arthur Aidala said at the time.

JRT claims Boutross and her Cushman colleagues blocked JRT and Pulice from accessing the account in order to get out of its obligations to pay JRT commissions for deals it had helped put together, the suit alleges.

This includes a commission on a $750M deal for the Bronx Logistics Center, a 1.3M SF Class-A warehouse in Hunts Point, per the filing.

DCAS was in negotiations to lease or buy the property from developers Turnbridge Equities and Dune Real Estate Partners until an October New York City Council committee hearing, where a video was played with Hamilton promoting the Bronx Logistics Center before a deal had closed. 

The city backed out of the deal the day after the hearing, and a DCAS spokesperson said at the time that the video was under review and wasn't authorized.