A lawsuit against one of the co-founders of a U.S.-based sports club has quadrupled in size, with a construction company now claiming more than $4 million is owed to it.
Giocondo DiPietro, the owner of DiDiepetro Construction Group, said the gym tycoon failed to pay an additional $3.5 million in equity for a second project he did for co-founder Vito Errico, updating two lawsuits filed last November with the Westchester Supreme Court in White Plains, New York, according to the New York Post. Though Errico paid the bare cost for labor and DiPietro provided his own equipment for free, Errico “knew he would never honor his end of the deal and instead planned on taking advantage of DiPietro by getting the value of the labor at less than true cost and the machinery for free and similarly not paying or transferring the equity,” the filing said.
“The complaints detail a pattern of deceit and broken promises made to my client,” Eric Grayson, the attorney for DiPietro, told the outlet. “I believe the jury will see right through the defendant and hold for my client.”
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An attorney for Errico dismissed the amended filing as “meritless.”
“Mr. DiPietro was forced to amend his complaint by the court,” Stephen Meister, the attorney for Errico, told the outlet. “He still has it wrong. We expect the court to find that Mr. DiPietro’s claims are meritless.”
The $3.5 million in damages from the 2018 project were tacked on to last November’s filings, which allege Errico failed to pay $1 million for work DiPietro did on a mixed residential and retail space building in 2017.
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DiPietro had done work for Errico in 2006 on a 12,000 square-foot mansion with an indoor pool and basketball court. The construction worker charged $1,500 for an eight-hour day to cover the costs of hiring an employee and the use of an excavation machine, according to court filings.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Meister, the Westchester Supreme Court, and Grayson but did not receive responses.
