Galleria Condo Board Sues Magician David Copperfield for $2.5 Million

Disputes between co-op and condo boards and their buildings' residents can be civil. They can be toxic. And sometimes, as the current dispute at the Galleria luxury condo attests, they can go all the way to thermonuclear.

The condo board at the Galleria, a 57-story tower at 117 E. 57th St., has sued the magician David Copperfield for $2.5 million in damages caused by two floods in his three-story penthouse apartment that sent deluges into elevator shafts, hallways and other apartments, NBC News reports.

The famed magician bought the unit for $7.4 million in 1997, then abruptly moved out in 2018. The first flood was the result of a burst rooftop swimming pool in 2015, and the second flood occurred last December. Though he disappeared from the building, Copperfield still owns the penthouse, which has been called "a greenhouse on stilts."

“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.”

To buttress the claim, the lawsuit is accompanied by grim pictures of peeling paint, stained floors and moldy bathtubs, and it claims the unit continues to leak. The company the board hired to assess the damage said the current conditions of the condo “pose potential safety and health hazards and should not remain within an occupied building.” In response to the company’s findings, Copperfield allegedly did “band-aid repairs,” the complaint says.“ Several of the more significant and dangerous issues such as subsurface decay/damage, structural stability, and mold growth remain unaddressed.”

In his Housing Notes newsletter, the appraiser Jonathan Miller writes: "It looks like Copperfield thought his exit from the penthouse would eliminate future problems created by the space. In reality, they continued and probably won't go away until he deals with it more directly."

A representative for Copperfield told the New York Post that “the photographs included in the lawsuit don’t reflect the current state of the apartment," adding that this thermonuclear war is nothing but "a simple insurance claim."

The condo board disagrees.