The 'lyin's shares
‘Tricked’ into selling club stakes
The co-owner of two Manhattan hot spots that draw celebs like Rihanna and ex-Met Matt Harvey convinced his partner that the clubs were struggling, bought him out on the cheap — then turned around and sold his share for $60 million, a new lawsuit charges.
Nightlife impresario Richie Akiva, 42, and Scott Sartiano, 44, joined forces to launch the popular 1 OAK club on West 17th Street in 2008 with a $3 million investment.
The pair then built up their Butter Group, which included restaurants and other nightclubs such as Up & Down on West 14th Street, raking in $50 million a year by 2014.
But Akiva began lying to Sartiano, claiming 1 OAK and Up & Down were money pits, Sartiano alleges in his Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
He persuaded Sartiano to let him buy him out with a series of lowball payments from 2015 to 2017, the suit says. The legal papers do not say how much Akiva payed Sartiano in all.
Akiva then sold what had been Sartiano’s shares to Canadian entertainment mogul Daryl Katz for $60 million, Sartiano claims.
Sartiano is suing Akiva for $15 million.
Akiva hid his eightfigure transaction because it “was inconsistent with what [he] was reporting to investors — that some of the clubs, including 1 OAK NYC and Up & Down, were struggling financially and losing money,’’ the suit says.
“For example . . . [claiming] 1 OAK NYC has not returned any profits to investors since 2014, despite the fact that 1 OAK NYC purportedly made a profit of approximately $1 million in 2016.”
A spokeswoman for Akiva told The Post on Sunday that he “vehemently’’ denies the “unfounded allegations.”
“This is simply the latest effort of Scott Sartiano, Mr. Akiva’s former business partner, to avoid the terms of the agreements he negotiated extensively to exit the business,” the spokeswoman said.
“Richie Akiva will vigorously defend this baseless lawsuit and seek recovery of his legal fees and damages caused him by Mr. Sartiano’s breach of their agreement and defamatory conduct.”
Both Chelsea clubs have drawn A-listers. Rihanna played bartender at the Up & Down in April 2016, and Harvey was infamously partying at 1 OAK the night before failing to show up for a Mets game in May 2017.
Sartiano, who is married to model Allie Rizzo, now runs a Noho health-food eatery called Broken Coconut. But he has kept his celebrity following.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Bella Hadid and Jonah Hill all frequent the restaurant, which serves grain bowls and dairy-free coconut yogurt.
Akiva has stayed rooted in nightlife, running 1 OAK offshoots in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, the Maldives, Tokyo and Mexico City.