A French chef mysteriously died last month after he and his wife plunked down more than $200,000 to open their dream restaurant in New York City — and now a “heartless” New York City landlord is refusing to refund the family’s life savings, The Post has learned.
Francois-Tanguy Olivon and his wife Manon Olivon had planned on moving with their young children from France, to open Chez Fanfan in the trendy SoHo neighborhood.
That was after selling their restaurant in Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, last year.
The couple had forked over a $166,000 deposit and $47,500 for two months rent for January and February to Robert Moskowitz, owner of New York-based Only Properties LLC, Manon Olivon told The Post.
But before they could open the brasserie at 510 Broome St., Francois-Tanguy disappeared during a vacation in the south of France after making a frantic call to his wife at 1 a.m. on Feb. 22, according to local media reports.
“He was shouting at me for help, to come and get him right away,” Manon said at the time, according to media reports.
Manon never spoke to her husband again.
A passerby later reported seeing him on the night he disappeared wearing a “completely torn” T-shirt. CCTV captured him falling off a bridge in the town of Bayonne. His body was fished out of the Adour River 12 days later.
The heartbroken widow informed Moskowitz of the tragedy in a March 1 letter, asking that he return at least a portion of her life savings.
“Today, I am not writing to a landlord – I am writing to a man. A man who, I hope can look beyond clauses and figures and understand that sometimes, life puts us through unimaginable trials that we cannot face alone,” she wrote.
“If you cannot return the full amount, then I beg you to at least return one month’s rent. It would be an immense help to me and my children.”
Moskowitz, however, refused to return any of the cash. Instead, Only Properties’ lawyer played hardball, threatening to hold the penniless widow accountable for the entire 10-year lease — which would total $3 million — unless she signed a “surrender agreement.”
“Refusing to sign the surrender agreement will not result in a return of your security deposit, but it will result in you being held fully responsible for all of the obligations set forth in the parties’ lease agreement,” Only Properties’ attorney Nicole Waknine wrote in the March 3 letter to Manon.
Manon ended up signing the surrender agreement.
“I don’t have anything,” Manon told The Post in an email. “I don’t have a house anymore because we sold it a while ago to move to New York. I no longer have a car either. I no longer have a job because my husband and I have sold our … restaurant in Brittany.”
She has started a Gofundme campaign to help with her expenses. It had raised just $550 as of Wednesday.
Moskowitz declined to comment through his lawyer.
“This scenario is highly unusual,” said New York restaurant leasing attorney Jeff Margolis, adding that Soho is a hot real estate market where it shouldn’t be difficult to attract alternative tenants.
“There are a lot of landlords out there who would like to be helpful … and not take that cavalier or draconian position.”
The landlord, he added, could have said, “We are going to hold this money but let’s see if we can find another tenant quickly and give back some of the security deposit.”
Experts noted that Moskowitz did nothing illegal in retaining the deposit and rent payments.
Still, other contractors who worked with the Olivons to open Chez Fanfan said they forgave their fees after they learned about the tragedy.
“I waived my legal fee,” liquor license attorney Max Bookman told The Post, adding “you don’t collect money from a widow whose husband just died.”
“I’m living a real nightmare,” Manon told The Post in an email. “On top of that comes the terrible weight of an insensitive, incomprehensible, heartless landlord who could care less about my situation and my pain and who doesn’t want to give me back even a single cent of my deposit.”
Last year, Moskowitz made headlines for evicting a couple in a swanky, rent stabilized loft he owns at 177 Hudson St. because his tenants – a high-powered couple – were improperly listing the space as a photography business and getting tax write-offs.
The city’s rent stabilization law requires an apartment to be the tenant’s primary residence.
“It should offend every taxpayer that such a fortunate couple sought to profit off a rent-stabilized apartment instead of simply using it as their primary home as the law required,” Moskowitz told The Post last year. “Stabilized rent was not enough for them, so they helped themselves to improper corporate tax deductions,” he added.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
