The verdict
A New York jury convicted Joseph Makhani, 63, of Kings Point on July 1, 2026 after a seven-week trial, taking about 90 minutes to find him guilty on two counts of criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree and one count of scheme to defraud in the first degree. The case was brought by Attorney General Letitia James, who had first indicted Makhani in 2021 and again in 2023.
The properties were 107 West 118th Street and 135 West 131st Street in Harlem, with a combined value of approximately $4.7 million. Makhani was remanded into custody immediately after the verdict, with sentencing scheduled for July 28, 2026 before New York State Supreme Court Judge Michele Rodney. The top count carries a maximum of eight and one-third to 25 years.
How the scheme worked
The scheme dated to 2012 and used fraudulent deeds, false documents and shell companies. A corporation Makhani controlled filed a deed in 2012 claiming a purchase price of $10 for one brownstone; prosecutors said he separately reported a false purchase price of $975,000 for the West 118th Street property, on the strength of which he obtained a $650,000 construction loan and then refinanced into a $1.2 million long-term mortgage [8](https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/07/02/long-island-man-convicted-in-4-7m-harlem-deed-theft-scheme/).
That $10 figure is the mechanical heart of deed theft. County recording offices in most states, New York included, are ministerial: the clerk records a deed that is facially valid and does not investigate whether the signature is genuine or the consideration real. A recorded deed then creates the appearance of title, which can be used to borrow against, sell to a third party, or commence eviction proceedings against the actual owner. Between 2016 and 2023, Makhani rented out four units in the property for between $3,000 and $3,400 a month after securing city approval to convert it to market-rate rentals.
The human consequence
One elderly homeowner was forced into a homeless shelter despite being the true owner of a property valued at approximately $2.9 million. At the second property, Makhani attempted to evict tenants unlawfully.
That outcome — the lawful owner displaced while the paper record says otherwise — is why deed theft is prosecuted as possession of stolen property rather than as a civil title dispute. Unwinding a fraudulent deed through civil litigation takes years that an elderly owner may not have.
The appeal and the wider pattern
Makhani's attorney, Susan Necheles — who has also represented Donald Trump, including in the 2024 hush-money trial — said on the record after the verdict: “We disagree with the jury verdict. Mr. Makhani was innocent of the charges and we expect to win on appeal” [8](https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2026/07/02/long-island-man-convicted-in-4-7m-harlem-deed-theft-scheme/).
Subsequent reporting on Makhani's broader real estate dealings found pretrial filings describing his involvement in more than 800 deed transactions through at least 100 corporate entities, with investigators identifying at least 52 additional properties showing signs of similar conduct [9](https://therealdeal.com/magazine/august-2026/inside-joseph-makhanis-deed-theft-machine/). The structural weakness those filings expose is not enforcement but recording. Several jurisdictions have responded to cases like this with owner notification systems that alert a property owner when any document is filed against their parcel — a cheap intervention that would have surfaced the 2012 filing within days rather than years.