CEO Hannah Bomze sued two of his investors, Samuel Ben-Avraham and Christian Visdomini, in October over allegations that they withheld $1.2 million in commissions owed to her, according to a motion for summary judgment filed in New York Supreme Court.
Now those same investors are firing back with their own lawsuit accusing Bomze and her husband, chief operating officer Erez Zarur, of misappropriating the company’s funds to pay for personal expenses such as luxury vacations.
In their complaint, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini accuse Bomze and Zarur of “dishonest and disloyal acts,” including denying access to the company’s financial data, investing more than $900,000 of the company’s money in cryptocurrency and generating “fake documents in support [Bomze’s] fabricated claims for commission.”
Bomze denied the allegations and described the lawsuit in a statement as retaliatory and “filled with slander and distraction.” She added that she expects the judge to dismiss the case because it has no merit.
“I have spent five years building Casa Blanca into one of the fastest growing and most respected real estate firms in New York,” Bomze said in the statement. “I will continue to protect the company I built and the work that made it successful.”
Jim Kennedy, a lawyer for Ben-Avraham and Visdomini, described the investors’ case as “simple,” adding, “we have confidence in the court’s ability to resolve it.”
Court documents show that what started as a legal action to collect unpaid commissions has since turned into a messy feud between Casa Blanca’s leadership and its lenders.
“Casa Blanca is not only at a crossroads, but also at a stalemate,” the investors say in their complaint. “Through their willful and knowing misconduct, Hannah and Erez prevent Sam and Chris from protecting their interests – and those of our investors – in the company.”
Within the dispute
Bomze and Zarur launched Casa Blanca in 2019, backed by a $1.8 million investment from Ben-Avraham, also an early investor in WeWork and Ronnie Fieg’s streetwear brand Kith. The company, which marketed itself as the “Tinder of real estate” with its app-centric approach, now has about 200 agents.
In the lawsuit, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini claim that Bomze and Zarur did not contribute any capital to start the brokerage, and that together they own 43 percent of the company, while Ben-Avraham owns 41 percent. (Visdomini owns just under 3 percent, with the rest held by other investors.)
Bomze claims in her motion that between 2021 and 2025 she earned approximately $2.5 million in commissions from transactions where she personally represented the buyer or seller, although she had only received approximately $1.3 million to date. She claims that, under the terms of an independent brokerage agreement, she gets to keep all fees associated with those deals.
However, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini have pushed back on these claims, arguing that Bomze’s compensation agreement, which consists of a salary and 0.5 percent of the company’s commissions, does not include a provision on personal deals.
The investors further allege that Bomze created false documents to support her claims, and that even if the brokerage agreement existed before her request for commission payment, it was never shown to the board. The investors claim that Bomze must repay the commissions she has already received.
“The company could not operate if one officer received 100 percent of the commissions on its own deals, and no investor would have agreed to finance the company on that basis,” the complaint said. The board “has never discussed or approved any addendum or side agreement that provides a personal right to commission to a manager.”
But Bomze dismissed the investors’ claims and instead argued that since she “personally acquired and closed those transactions,” she is entitled to the commissions.
“Under New York law, these committees belong to me,” Bomze said in the statement. “I deliberately delayed collecting it and left the money in the company for years to sustain the business, strengthen cash flow and fuel growth.”
In addition to the commission dispute, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini also accused Bomze and Zarur of “paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses with the company’s credit cards.”
Among the expenses were “luxury restaurant expenses, luxury vacations, expenses associated with the Bomzes’ children’s summer camp, gifts given to individuals unrelated to the company or its operations, and memberships to private tennis clubs, restaurants and nightclubs in New York City.” The complaint also stated that Zarur used $900,000 of the company’s money to purchase Bitcoin.
Louis Buckworth, who previously worked with Casa Blanca, reportedly raised concerns about the alleged embezzlement of funds to Ben-Avraham in July, after he and his wife met Bomze and Zarur for drinks at Le Bilboquet in the Hamptons after the couple’s dinner at the restaurant.
Buckworth told Ben-Avraham that Bomze and Zarur paid for their entire one-on-one dinner with the company credit card, even though it was a “purely social (and very expensive) dinner,” according to the complaint.
Ben-Avraham and Visdomini filed their lawsuit after negotiations with Bomze to withdraw its previous action failed, according to the complaint, which seeks damages in connection with what they describe as “serious acts of treason.”
They also ask the judge to grant Bomze and Zarur access to all of the company’s financial data, including “bank statements, related software platforms, passwords and logins necessary to access the company’s financial information.”
They are also seeking a declaratory judgment declaring that Bomze is not owed any of the $1.2 million in alleged outstanding commissions and that she is not entitled to keep the $1.3 million she has already received.
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