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When a developer asks for money to help put together a deal, especially in New Jersey, get the money up front is the lesson former personal chef to Leona Helmsley has learned the hard way. Dennis Samma was the personal chef for Leona Helmsley and helped a developer get direct access to the real estate magnate. For this the developer, James Bovino, would give him a finders fee.

Well, as miracles tend to happen, the contact was made and the deal was done. Then in true dirtbag fashion, the developers refused to pay the finders fee because the chef did not have a real estate brokers license. Instead of treating it like all it was, they claim that the money should be treated as a commision and that paying one to a non licensed person is illegal in the state of New Jersey.

Amazing how low people can go. If this goes through the courts the precedent will be set in New Jersey that the only ones that can profit in a real estate deal are the direct participants and the brokers. All by using a law that was written to protect people without a real estate license from acting in the role of brokers, not facillitators.

At stake is about $5 million that Sammarone claims the developer owes him for his “pivotal” role in the purchase of Helmsley’s long-va cant 16-acre property at the foot of the George Washington Bridge.

In a March 2003 letter to developer James Bovino, chief operating officer of Town & Country Developers, Sammarone wrote, “I ask only for what you have promised me. I do so, as my contribution was the ‘recipe for success” no pun in tended!”

According to the chef’s attorney, Angelo Genova, Bovino reached out to Sammarone for help because the developer was having trouble getting a meeting with Helmsley, also known as the “Queen of Mean,” for her notorious temper and intolerance.

A cousin of Sammarone’s who worked for the developer, told her boss about the chef, whose friend ship with Helmsley goes back to a night in 1977 when she ate his lob ster fra diavolo. Helmsley liked the dish so much, according to Sam marone, she hired him as her personal chef and as the executive chef at her Manhattan hotel chain.

Bovino was dealing with a seller whose reputation for being a diffi cult personality was legendary, Genova said, referring to Helmsley, who was convicted of tax evasion in 1989.

Sammarone maintains Helmsley was “nice” and “generous” with him, and he made “numerous” phone calls to facilitate the meet ing that ultimately resulted in the purchase of her Fort Lee property. Later, in 2004, Fort Lee officials approved Bovino’s company’s $700 million plan for 762 residential units, 100,000 square feet of retail shops, 90,000 square feet of office space and a hotel.
In exchange for his assistance, Sammarone said Bovino promised him 3 percent of the property’s sale price, a condo and a first-floor res taurant in a high-rise on the tract. He said Bovino never made good on the promise, however.
“They used him. They duped him. They took advantage of him to get to Mrs. Helmsley,” Genova said. “And now they want to drop him like a hot potato.”

Chef suing for a piece of $46M real estate pie.

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