P.W. Real Estate Developer Sentenced to Five Years

A Port Washington real estate developer was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to cough up the $27.2 million she stole in a Ponzi scam, federal prosecutors said.

Ivy Woolf-Turk was initially charged in a complaint that alleged she was working through a Manhattan real estate development company — The Kingsland Group, Inc. — and fraudulently induced approximately 70 individuals to lend the Kingsland Group over $27 million, purportedly to fund the renovation of approximately sixteen multi-family apartment buildings located in upper Manhattan, New York.

Woolf-Turk and a co-conspirator, Michael Hershkowitz of Manhattan, falsely represented that the lenders would hold, as collateral for the loans, interests in bona fide first mortgages in the various properties in which they thought they were investing. In fact, the lenders did not hold recorded, first mortgages in the properties. Interest was paid on the loans for some years after they were first made, but ultimately the principal on the loans was not repaid when due and it was determined that the lenders did not have valid first mortgages on the properties in question.

Woolf-Turk pleaded guilty before United States District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald to one-count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. She faced a maximum term of 20 years in prison.

Lev L. Dassin, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York  praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in this case. This investigation was being handled by the Major Crimes Unit of the United States Attorney's Office.