A property owned by James McManus in New Milford, C.T., which he alleges his friend has used a scam assest management company to force him to make millions of dollars in unlawful payments on.
Provided by James McManus
A Bronx man says his childhood friend leveraged his criminal history to scam him out of millions of dollars with the help of a sham property asset management company, accusing him of running a yearslong racketeering scheme in Manhattan federal court.
James McManus says his childhood friend, John Lettera, “financially crippled” him after he took loans out from Lettera’s asset management company, Fairbridge Asset Management LLC, to develop his properties on McGraw Avenue in The Bronx and New Milford, Connecticut. McManus alleges Lettera deceived and coerced him into a series of fraudulent loan transactions between 2021 and 2025, extracting millions of dollars in payments McManus thought he was putting toward his loans and mortgages on the properties. In fact, the suit says, Lettera was pocketing the funds himself.
As a result, McManus said, he defaulted on his loans and mortgages, pushing him into foreclosure proceedings where Lettera would eventually take ownership of the buildings.
Andrew Laufer, McManus’s attorney, told amNewYork Law that, through Fairbridge, Lettera would consistently harass McManus for payments under false pretenses, frequently giving confusing, aggressive instructions.
“At one point, [McManus] made a payment of a million dollars for one thing, then they said it was for another thing, then they said it was for a third thing,” Laufer said. “It’s a shell game. It’s structuring a default, it’s predatory, it’s racketeering. It’s insane what occurred here.”
Attorneys for Lettera — Robert Alessi, Matthew Ross and Preston Scherr of Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein & Breitstone — declined to comment.
Laufer said the suit likely will seek $50 million in damages, citing money lost in direct payments McManus made to Lettera as well as emotional and physical distress McManus experienced. McManus said Lettera harassing him for payments and destabilizing him financially led to heart issues that landed him in the hospital and with high medical bills.
McManus alleges that Lettera has scammed dozens of people in similar ways, choosing clients who seemed unlikely to figure out his scheme and fight back. He likened the business structure to that of a “run-of-the-mill organized crime racketeering operation.”
McManus posits that Lettera scammed him because he thought McManus wouldn’t bring him to court, since they were friends — and because McManus has a negative history with the court system. He served eight years of federal time in the 1990s after being convicted on racketeering charges himself, and feels Lettera took advantage of his inability to get loans from other places.
“I’m not really bankable. I have a judgment on my head,” McManus said in an interview, referring to his past charges. “I can’t go to any regular bank and get a loan … [Lettera] said ‘Don’t worry about it. I got you, I’ll lend you money.’ They took advantage of that.”
Now, Laufer said, his client is turning over a new leaf and doesn’t want to “take this lying down.”
“He acknowledges his past. He’s paid his debt to society, and he’s trying to build his life back,” Laufer said.
‘They’ve done this before’
Laufer said at least three people have reached out to him since McManus filed the suit, claiming Lettera similarly scammed them when they took loans out on their properties through Fairbridge, which was previously known as RealFi Private Lending.
“It’s clear that they’ve done this before,” Laufer said. “They were robbing my client of money. They were robbing my client of his property. This is what they do.”
He said he believed there was potential for a class action suit to arise against Lettera and Fairbridge in the future.
McManus also says Fairbridge was borrowing against and obtaining credit lines through investment management companies like Oaktree, Churchill Asset Management and Nuveen, which manage the retirement accounts of millions of teachers, valued at $2.5 trillion.
By alleging scamming their borrowers while using credit lines from those companies, Laufer says Lettera is opening up those companies to massive lawsuits and hundreds of millions of dollars of losses, as well as putting teacher retirement programs at risk.
Laufer and McManus said they hope the suit stops Lettera and Fairbridge from taking advantage of property owners and loan companies.
“A lot of the people that they put into this position, a lot of people they target, they’re so drained at the end of the day,” Laufer said.” They’re left with nothing. We’re standing up, and we’re gonna get justice.”
