The Wall Street Journal reports today that a 4,917-square-foot condo at 170 East End Avenue has been sold for $11.2 million. It went to a mystery buyer who swooped in after the person who put down a 10-percent down payment, celebrity Ponzi schemer Kenneth I. Starr, encountered “legal troubles.”
The Journal‘s headline, which dubs the suite the “Starr Penthouse,” is a bit misleading. You could be forgiven for thinking it might be the very same apartment where Mr. Starr hid from federal agents in his closet, with his shoes sticking out. But no! That apartment on East 74th Street, a building where Bernie Madoff’s younger son owns a condo, cost a mere $7.6 million.
When Mr. Starr put his down payment on the East End place, a five-bedroom glass affair overlooking Gracie Mansion, he intended to pay $13.9 million. Curbed has a floorplan.
A court-appointed receiver for Mr. Starr is trying to get the deposit back, so that it may go toward recompensing his victims. The receiver last made headlines for suing former Starr client Martin Scorsese.
