Dakota Co-op Board Gets the Last Bitter Laugh

Alphonse Fletcher Jr., a former president of the co-op board at the legendary Dakota on Central Park West, has been ordered by the courts to put his seven-room apartment with treetop views on the market for $12.5 million, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Nearly $2.5 million of the proceeds will go toward the co-op’s legal fees in its protracted battle with Fletcher – a victory that should delight co-op boards across the city. The co-op will also collect a $286,000 assessment that Fletcher never paid.

The court-ordered sale of the apartment is the end of a soap opera that has been running for nearly a quarter of a century. Fletcher, who ran an asset management firm, bought an apartment in the Dakota in 1992 for $1.4 million. He served as board president from 2006 to 2009. But when the board rejected his offer to buy an adjacent apartment for $5.7 million on financial grounds, Fletcher, who is African-American, filed a discrimination suit that sought $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

Some of the proceeds from the apartment sale will go to investors who were defrauded by Fletcher Asset Management.