Pasternak, of the law firm Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, was disbarred by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in connection with receiving $260,000 in undisclosed payments from controversial real estate investor Sam Sprei during a bankruptcy case.
Pasternak admitted to using most of Sprei’s proceeds to buy a house.
Pasternak is a bankruptcy attorney for mid-market dealmakers. His past clients included entities associated with Yitzhak Tessler, Jeff Simpson of Arch Companies and Steven Ostad.
Pasternak was working for the law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr at the time of the incidents that led to his suspension. He has been working at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron since 2019.
Despite the suspension, Pasternak remains employed at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron and is allowed to practice in other courts.
“All the events took place long before he joined us,” said Larry Hutcher, a founding partner of Davidoff Hutcher & Citron. “There has been no question about his integrity with us.”
Hutcher noted that Pasternak is a “good lawyer” who “made one mistake” in a career spanning several decades.
At the center of Pasternak’s troubles is the controversial bankruptcy of a medical office at 261 East 78th Street, according to an opinion by a grievance committee for the Southern District of New York.
The property’s owner, Lee Moncho, hired Pasternak as his attorney to force the property into bankruptcy after it faced foreclosure from its lender MB Financial.
During that process, Pasternak suggested to Moncho that he contact Sprei about acting as financier of the bankruptcy plan. In early 2014, Moncho’s bankruptcy plan was approved by the court. The building was sold to a company that was largely owned by Sprei.
But Pasternak never informed his client or the court of his other deals with Sprei.
Sprei had previously offered to pay Pasternak a finder’s fee for bankruptcy deals. In the case of the 261 East 78th Street bankruptcy, Sprei Pasternak would also pay after certain milestones in the bankruptcy process were reached. This included court approval of the bankruptcy plan.
Between September 2013 and February 2014, Sprei sent more than four payments to Pasternak totaling $260,000.
Sprei made its largest payment when the bankruptcy plan was confirmed by the court on February 28, 2014. On that day, Sprei presented Pasternak with a check for $200,000, according to the complaints committee.
According to the Complaints Committee, Pasternak never disclosed these payments to his client Moncho, his law firm, or to the bankruptcy court, the U.S. Trust Office or the IRS for years.
Moncho filed a malpractice suit against Pasternak and others in 2017, alleging that Pasternak negligently introduced him and encouraged him to do business with Sprei and his business partner Chaim Miller.
A year later, an ethics consultant from Pasternak’s law firm DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr conducted an internal investigation and sent a letter to the bankruptcy judge admitting that Pasternak had accepted a $25,000 payment.
But Pasternak was less candid about the other payments, according to the complaints committee. He had claimed that his counsel disclosed the $200,000 payment to the U.S. trustee in 2018, but the trustee overseeing the bankruptcy denied that Pasternak’s counsel ever made the disclosure.
The grievance committee alleges that Pasternak did not disclose the $200,000 payment until the payment came to light during the discovery process as part of the lawsuit filed by Moncho.
Pasternak filed an affidavit on November 7, 2025, admitting wrongdoing and taking responsibility for violating the court’s rules. He agreed to the three-year suspension.
Pasternak’s suspension will take effect on February 9. He did not return a request for comment. An attorney for Sprei also did not return a request for comment.
For the better part of a decade, Sprei and his former partner Chaim Miller became known for protracted legal battles with creditors and investors. Sprei was tasked with finding deals for Miller, but now he appears to be on his own. In August 2024 Bedspread bought a 41-unit rental property from Madison Realty Capital.
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