Estate of Riverhead attorney faces $1.5M suit over lender’s lost mortgage

A Southold landscaping company owner is suing the estate of a deceased Riverhead attorney, alleging the lawyer’s negligence and fraud cost him an $800,000 mortgage investment — and that he only discovered the loss last month when a stranger contacted him out of the blue.

Timothy Coffey filed the lawsuit Friday in Suffolk County Supreme Court against David Jannuzzi, the executor of the estate of the late Michael Kimack Sr., a Riverhead attorney (photo above).

Coffey seeks a temporary restraining order to freeze the estate’s assets before they can be distributed, noting in court documents that once the money is gone, he will have no way to recover his losses.

“If the funds are distributed from the estate, the plaintiff Timothy Coffey will have absolutely no recourse to recover the damages he has sustained,” Coffey’s attorney Jack Dweck wrote in the affirmation supporting the temporary restraining order application.

Jannuzzi, also an attorney, was appointed executor of Kimack’s estate by Suffolk County Surrogate’s Court in July 2025, about 15 months after Kimack, 81, died. His estate’s beneficiaries include his widow, Lisandra Perez Gonzalez, and son Michael Kimack Jr.

In December 2022, Kimack presented Coffey with a proposed deal: an $800,000 loan to 215 West Hempstead Realty Corp., secured by a mortgage on commercial property at 215 Hempstead Avenue in West Hempstead, the lawsuit says. The property in the past has been home to New Deal Auto Sales Inc. and Friendly Auto Service.

The terms of the loan agreement called for 10 percent annual interest, payable in monthly installments of $6,667, with the $800,000 principal due in January 2028.

The closing took place Dec. 15, 2022, with Coffey, who owns Timothy Coffey Nursery Landscape Inc. based on the North Fork, as the lender handing over the $800,000.

That, the lawsuit alleges, is where Kimack’s failures began, and then compounded, year after year, in silence.

Coffey’s attorneys say Kimack never obtained a personal guarantee from Nadide Cakici, the president of the borrowing company — a document Kimack was specifically engaged to secure and that would have given Coffey a direct claim against her personally in the event of default.

Kimack also allegedly collected a $17,600 tax escrow deposit at closing to cover property taxes if the borrower fell behind — then never used it, even as taxes on the West Hempstead property went unpaid for approximately three years, court documents allege.

Nassau County eventually placed a tax lien on the property, which was later sold to a third-party investor, according to the lawsuit. A treasurer’s deed was then recorded in the Nassau County Clerk’s office — extinguishing Coffey’s mortgage.

At no point, the lawsuit says, did Kimack notify Coffey that the borrower had stopped paying taxes, that the property had been liened, or that a third party had purchased that lien. Kimack also allegedly never declared the borrower in default, never initiated foreclosure, and never checked whether the borrower maintained insurance on the property, the plaintiff alleges.

Coffey says he learned the full scope of the situation just last month — on May 28 — when the tax lien purchaser reached out to him directly.

The lawsuit pursues three legal theories: professional malpractice, breach of contract, and fraud. On the fraud count, Coffey alleges Kimack made repeated false promises about the quality of his services in order to induce Coffey to keep giving him legal work.

Jannuzzi noted that his legal team is preparing a formal response to the claim and deferred comment on the case to his attorney, William Goggins. Greater Long Island called and emailed Goggins, but had not heard back from him at the time of publication.

Additionally, Sandra Pendrick, an estate attorney representing Kimack’s widow, Perez Gonzalez, had not replied to a request for comment at press time.

Cakici, the president of 215 West Hempstead Realty Corp. and the borrower’s principal named in the suit, declined to comment when she was reached by phone.

Coffey and his attorney did not replied to requests for comment.

_{Top: Michael Kimack Sr. (Mangano Family Funeral Homes Inc.) and 215 Hempstead Ave. in West Hempstead (Google Maps Street View).}