Opinion
February 17, 1998
Appeal from the Supreme Court, New York County (Beverly Cohen, J.).
Plaintiff's motion to reargue and renew was properly granted, though the court erroneously characterized it as a grant of reargument rather than renewal, in light of the Federal complaint filed after the initial motion was submitted. Plaintiff sufficiently pleaded a RICO claim with respect to the purchase and sale of land located in Orange County by virtue of the allegations of a "pattern of racketeering activity", including multiple interrelated schemes to defraud over a three-year period with multiple victims, multiple perpetrators, multiple and related predicate acts, continuity and integral elements of mail and wire fraud (see, Moss v. Morgan Stanley, 719 F.2d 5, 17, cert denied sub nom. Moss v. Newman, 465 U.S. 1025). As to defendant Blustein, the complaint did not merely allege that he acted as attorney, but that he was a participant in the activity in his capacity as an officer of several of the corporations utilized in the alleged scheme (compare, Reves v. Ernst Young, 507 U.S. 170). We have considered appellants' remaining arguments and find them to be without merit.
Concur — Wallach, J. P., Rubin, Williams, Tom and Andrias, JJ.