A real estate holding company claims the unethical conduct of a former partner of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr led the White Plains-based law firm to bungle a corporate bankruptcy case.

The holding company, 261 East 78 Lofts LLC, and its owner, Lee Moncho, filed suit against the 30-attorney law firm, its former partner Jonathan Pasternak and others Tuesday, seeking more than $30 million and alleging a host of claims such as legal malpractice, fraud and attorney deceit under Judiciary Law Section 487.

According to the complaint in Manhattan Supreme Court, Pasternak, while at the White Plains firm, represented Moncho and 261 East 78 Realty, known as Realty, in Realty's 2011 Chapter 11 bankruptcy case in the Southern District of New York. During that matter, the complaint alleges, Pasternak got involved in an unethical real estate side deal with bankruptcy plan's funders.

Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed Pasternak referred Moncho to two businessmen, Sam Sprei and Harry Miller, who were supposed to fund Realty's bankruptcy plan and take a stake in the building once Realty sold it to Lofts.

But Miller and Sprei ended up burdening the property with debt without Moncho's approval, the suit said, adding Pasternak secretly took a $25,000 brokerage fee from Sprei's lawyers at Perkins Coie for making the introduction. (The DelBello firm wrote a letter to the Southern District bankruptcy court in 2018 to detail the alleged conflict and explain that Pasternak was no longer affiliated with the firm.)

The plaintiffs claim the misdeeds resulted in Moncho and Lofts being forced to sell the building. It's the second suit Moncho has filed making similar allegations, and related claims have been aired before other judges.

But in an interview, a leader at the DelBello firm said it's Moncho who engaged in wrongdoing. Alfred Donnellan, the firm's managing partner, told the Law Journal on Thursday that Moncho's new suit seemed to violate a judge's order in a 2017 case Moncho filed against the same four defendants that requires him to get permission from the judge before making new filings.

"His filing of his complaint is actually in contempt of court," said Donnellan. "He's obviously violating the intent of Justice [Franc] Perry's order."

Donnellan added that his firm hadn't represented Moncho personally, which Moncho disputes. Asked whether Pasternak's taking of a $25,000 commission had any impact on the dispute, Donnellan said no. While Pasternak had been a partner, "whatever he did or didn't do didn't impact Mr. Moncho at all," Donnellan said.

Pasternak, who is now at Rattet Law in White Plains, didn't respond to a request for comment, and Robert Bergson, a lawyer at Abrams Garfinkel Margolis Bergson who represents Pasternak in another suit, declined to comment.

Perkins Coie, which later sued Sprei for unpaid legal fees, didn't respond to a comment request. Sprei didn't respond to a request for comment and contact information for Miller couldn't be found.