Troubled Manhattan restaurateur Ken Friedman — already under fire over sex abuse allegations — is now being accused of cooking up a lucrative scheme to defraud a trendy Chelsea hotel.
A new $5 million lawsuit charges that Friedman fudged the books at the Michelin-starred Breslin and John Dory restaurants, which he operated inside the Ace Hotel on West 29th Street until earlier this year, so he could continue to operate them while collecting “management fees.”
The hotel’s contract with Friedman called for it to receive 9.5 percent of net sales from the eateries in exchange for him getting a minimum $250,000 annual fee, according to the Manhattan Supreme Court suit filed by Ace’s operators.
If Friedman didn’t pay the hotel at least $500,000 as part of the deal, after 2013, they could cut his contract.
He was also required to keep a capital reserve account equal to 4 percent of monthly gross revenues, the suit says.
The restaurants were opened at the hotel in 2010 and did well at first, the papers say. Then in 2015, they nosedived — and were $65,000 in the red by 2017, the suit says.
An audit revealed that Friedman used “financial manipulations and deception” to conceal “the declining financial performance of the restaurants’’ so he could continue to operate “while receiving management fees that were not due,” the suit says.
In 2017, Friedman helped himself to nearly $650,000 in management fees, according to the filing. He also failed to deposit the 4 percent of revenues into the reserve account, the suit says.
The suit is the latest accusation of wrongdoing against Friedman, who allegedly nicknamed an off-hours “rape room’’ at his West Village hot spot The Spotted Pig with disgraced celebrity chef Mario Batali.
He and Batali have been accused by former staffers of groping and demanding sex from workers.
Friedman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit Monday.
At the time of the sex allegations, he said, “Some of the incidents were not as described.’’
Batali has said he can’t remember the staffers’ “specific accounts,’’ although he added that he had “behaved terribly.’’
