A New York City landlord has a message for the collector who recently sold the suit John Lennon wore on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album: You never give me your money.
The seller's former landlord has sued the gallery that auctioned the late Beatle's suit for $46,000, trying to get at the proceeds to satisfy a rent debt.
Braswell Galleries was told before the Jan. 1 sale that a court had determined in 2009 that seller Biond Fury — a psychic and memorabilia collector — owed more than $21,000 in rent for his former Manhattan apartment, according to landlord Mark Arrow's lawsuit, filed Tuesday in a Manhattan state court. Arrow's lawyers say they told the Norwalk, Conn.-based gallery not to go through with the sale, and that the gallery should now have to fork over at least $21,463.
Arrow had been unable to collect the rent debt from Fury, but the prospects brightened when he learned of the coming auction from a newspaper report last month, said Arrow lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey.
