Mitch Kossoff

Mitch Kossoff is a real estate lawyer in the New York area who apparently disappeared in the spring of 2021 to avoid creditors and clients.

His disappearance led Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. to launch a criminal investigation in early April to see if Kossoff misused clients' funds. The start of the investigation came just days after a pair of landlords, SSM Realty Group and 537 Associates, sued Kossoff, trying to get back millions of dollars in escrow funds after he allegedly ghosted the firms.

Kossoff’s clients and the partners at his firm, Kossoff PLLC, had by the first week of April been unable to reach him for several days and his law firm’s website went offline, according to The Real Deal. Kossoff was also hit with a third lawsuit early in the same month from art dealer Heiner Friedrich, who accused Kossoff of not turning over nearly $300,000 from Friedrich’s escrow account, court records show.


Friedrich’s lawsuit is tacked on to the $1.3 million in funds landlord SSM Realty Group sued Kossoff to get back and the $2.59 million in damages 537 Associates, another landlord, wants after Kossoff didn’t transfer $440,000 from its escrow account in March, according to court records.

Aside from the suits, at least three confessions of judgments had been filed against Kossoff as of early April from merchant cash advance companies after Kossoff defaulted on a combined nearly $730,000 worth of loans.