NEW YORK — A predatory property grifter who forged land records to seize two historic Harlem brownstones worth $4.7 million will spend up to 21 years behind bars.
New York State Supreme Court Judge Michele Rodney handed down the consecutive prison terms on Tuesday to Joseph Makhani, ending a decade-long paper fraud scheme that pushed a rightful elderly homeowner into a municipal homeless shelter while Makhani pocketed thousands in monthly tenant rent.
The sentence follows a grueling seven-week jury trial that concluded in July, where prosecutors from the Office of the New York State Attorney General proved Makhani systematically falsified title registries, shell-company filings, and loan paperwork to usurp ownership of brownstones at 107 West 118th Street and 135 West 131st Street.
Jurors convicted Makhani on three felony counts: two counts of criminal possession of stolen property in the first degree and one count of scheme to defraud in the first degree.
After years of scheming and deceiving New Yorkers, Joseph Makhani is finally facing justice.
Letitia James, New York State Attorney General
Makhani launched his scheme on the 107 West 118th Street brownstone in 2012. He operated through a corporate entity under his direct control, filing a fraudulent property conveyance asserting that the firm had acquired the property for a mere $10.
He escalated the paper trail shortly after.
Makhani submitted a fabricated mortgage application claiming he purchased the brownstone for $975,000. That lie secured him a $650,000 commercial construction loan for renovations. He then leveraged the building further, refinancing the property to siphon an additional long-term mortgage payout of $1.2 million.
To lock in cash flow, Makhani forged filings submitted to the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development to reclassify the property into market-rate rentals. From 2016 through 2023, he leased out individual units for up to $3,400 a month, pulling in more than $12,000 in rent every thirty days.
The real owner received nothing.
Instead, the elderly titleholder was driven completely out of the property, spending years surviving inside the city's shelter system while Makhani siphoned rent from the brownstone, which city records valued at approximately $2.9 million by 2023.
Makhani deployed an entirely different deception to capture the second brownstone at 135 West 131st Street, a property valued at approximately $1.8 million in 2018.
Title on the parcel had remained untouched since 1975, registered under an owner who died shortly after purchase. Makhani pounced on the lapse in 2012. He approached an active tenant inside the building under the pretext of offering him employment, slipped legal papers into the exchange, and obtained the tenant's signature.
He then filed a fraudulent deed that falsely listed the unwitting tenant as the sole owner before executing an immediate transfer to another shell company he ran.
When Makhani initiated eviction lawsuits in 2013 to kick existing tenants onto the street, housing proceedings cast immediate doubt on his ownership claims. Makhani simply manufactured a second forged deed. This filing claimed the long-deceased owner's heirs had directly signed over the brownstone to his corporate entity.
Trial records revealed Makhani coordinated multiple fraudulent civil lawsuits across both parcels to suppress challenges and cement his control.
| Property Address | Valuation Metric | Loan & Fraud Mechanics | Legal Penalty Imposed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 107 West 118th Street | $2.9 Million (2023) | Filed $10 deed; extracted $650K loan & $1.2M refinance; $12K/month rent | 4 to 12 years in state prison |
| 135 West 131st Street | $1.8 Million (2018) | Tricked tenant via fake job offer; forged heir deed to beat eviction scrutiny | 3 to 9 years in state prison |
| Combined Scheme | $4.7 Million Combined | First-degree scheme to defraud through corporate shells and forged city filings | 1⅓ to 4 years concurrent; $500K restitution |
Judge Rodney structured Makhani's prison time to penalize both thefts individually. She ordered the four-to-12-year sentence for the 118th Street brownstone and the three-to-nine-year sentence for the 131st Street property to run consecutively.
A concurrent sentence of one and one-third to four years was attached to the scheme-to-defraud conviction, fixing his total custodial exposure at seven to 21 years.
Financial penalties followed. The court ordered Makhani to pay $500,000 in direct restitution to Flushing Bank by May 7, 2027.
The legal fallout is not over. The Supreme Court scheduled an upcoming proceeding to determine the final voiding and official cancellation of all fraudulent deeds and recorded mortgages against 107 West 118th Street to clear the title for good.