Fictitious deals and fake emails: New Nussbaum filings expose alleged Ponzi scheme

Mark Nussbaum, a disgraced Manhattan attorney and real estate broker, said in new legal filings that he funneled $336 million from his law firm’s escrow clients to real estate investor Mendel Steiner between 2022 and 2025.

The documents reveal the inner workings of Nussbaum and Steiner’s alleged Ponzi scheme, in which some creditors were offered “fictitious investment opportunities involving supposed evidence of monetary transactions or real estate purchases that did not actually exist,” Nussbaum said.

“Fake emails, escrow agreements and deal documentation were used; non-existent third parties in whose names the deals were supposedly made were invented,” the documents state.

Nussbaum said most of his surety clients, who are now creditors of Nussbaum’s estate, were introduced to him by Steiner, who died by suicide in a Manhattan hotel in January 2025 as the alleged scheme was about to emerge into public view. Nussbaum Lowinger closed days later and lawsuits mounted from escrow customers demanding their money back.

Shelden Eisenberger, the attorney handling the liquidation process – known as assignment for the benefit of creditors – of Nussbaum’s former law firms, Nussbaum Lowinger and Mark J Nussbaum & Associates, is focusing on the transfers to Steiner’s family in an effort to recover the hundreds of millions owed to Nussbaum’s creditors.

The new documents paint the clearest picture yet of the flow of money between Nussbaum and Steiner and his family. Nussbaum said he transferred about $24 million directly to Steiner or to companies controlled by members of his family.

In addition to direct transfers, Nussbaum transferred escrow funds to Steiner’s companies Aven Realty and Real Green Management. Those companies then transferred at least $68 million to companies controlled by Steiner’s father, brother and wife, according to Eisenberger.

To compensate Nussbaum for his role in the scheme, Aven Realty and Real Green sent $104 million, according to Eisenberger’s confirmation.

Eisenberger said he does not yet have access to all of Aven Realty and Real Green’s books and records. But his legal team was able to document some transfers.

This includes $4.3 million to DS Lending, a company owned by Steiner’s wife Dini Endzweig Steiner; $361,500 to Olivii, a clothing company owned by Dini; $6.4 million to 365 12th Avenue LLC, a company owned by Steiner’s brother Naftali; and $6.7 million to 198 President Realty LLC, another company owned by Naftali Steiner.

Eisenberger is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Aven Realty or Real Green from transferring assets.

He notes that the recovery efforts were made on behalf of 52 of Nussbaum’s creditors, who lost a significant amount of money as a result of the alleged Ponzi scheme.

“Some of those creditors are themselves threatened with insolvency as a result of these losses,” Eisenberger said in his confirmation. “This is a very important matter and this is an urgent matter.”

The documents also explicitly explain how Nussbaum and Steiner’s Ponzi scheme worked. Nussbaum and Steiner presented three types of investments to potential investors. One offered customers high monthly fees in exchange for deposits into Nussbaum Lowinger’s escrow accounts. The money was supposed to be held in escrow, but was instead used by Steiner to show lenders or sellers that he was capitalized. The second method was through fraudulent real estate purchases, where Steiner offered Nussbaum’s clients the opportunity to finance his real estate purchase or make a deposit. The third was by offering customers the chance to deposit money for a short period of time in exchange for ‘exorbitant interest and fees’. The money would be used for “show capital” transactions. Instead, Nussbaum used the money to make bridge loans to real estate dealers.