David Copperfield might be a master illusionist, but no amount of magic will make this mess disappear.
A new lawsuit filed against Copperfield claims the famed magician is a negligent neighbour who left his tony New York City penthouse in a state of disrepair so bad that it threatened the building’s structural integrity.
The suit, to the tune of US$2.5 million (C$3.4 million), was filed by the board of the Galleria Condominium, a luxurious 55-storey building in midtown Manhattan
The board alleges that after Copperfield bought the condo in 1997 for about $7.4 million he filled it with arcade games, fortune-telling machines and other items like “hazing devices apparently used by various fraternities during the turn of the century.”
Photos included in the filing show a filthy bathtub, a stained carpet and chipped and decaying walls and ceilings. The board claims Copperfield did not do proper maintenance and upkeep on the unit and let it “devolve into a state of complete dilapidation” after moving out in 2018.
“Rather than moving out in a safe and orderly fashion, Copperfield trashed the Unit,” the lawsuit states. “Since then, Copperfield has allowed the Unit to devolve into a state of utter disrepair.”
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“In fact, architects have warned the Condominium that, among other things, Copperfield’s apartment contains unrepaired water damage that is so severe that it presents risks to the ‘concrete structure of the building,’ facilitated the growth of mold and mildew, and actively endangers other apartments.”
Copperfield still owns the penthouse, despite transferring ownership to a shell company he owns shortly after buying it.
The lawsuit also accuses the 67-year-old of causing damage not only to his own “formerly pristine multilevel penthouse,” but also to other tenants’ homes. According to the filing, after his rooftop pool burst in 2015 as a result of “illegal and ineffective” plastic plumbing, torrents of water damaged condos in the 30 storeys below.
Last December a valve allegedly failed in the then-abandoned unit, sending more water into other condos, hallways and the building’s elevator shaft.
Because the residence is so large, the complaint explains, it is serviced by its own dedicated heating, ventilation, hot water and electrical systems. The equipment is not used by other tenants and the building’s bylaws place responsibility on the unit’s owner for the upkeep and repair of those systems.
His motivation to destroy his own apartment, the complaint reads, and permit it to decay “is entirely unclear, especially when he still owns the Unit and is marketing it for sale.”
A rep for Copperfield told the New York Post that the issues boil down to “a simple insurance claim” and that the photographs in the lawsuit “don’t reflect the current state of the apartment.”
The condo board says an architecture firm hired to assess the damage this year “confirmed (its) worst fears.” However, it says, Copperfield had only addressed cosmetic issues with “band-aid repairs.”
“Several of the more significant and dangerous issues such as subsurface decay/damage, structural stability, and mold growth remain unaddressed.”
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