Zuhdi Karagjozi, the Rumson man who founded Kara Homes, claims in court papers that the bankrupt homebuilder’s chief restructuring officer and “his henchmen” are poised to cheat him, according to a story on the Asbury Park Press website.

From the story:

Karagjozi in court papers filed Wednesday said Perry Mandarino, Kara’s chief restructuring officer, rejected investors Karagjozi lined up in the past two weeks that would have offered a higher dividend to unsecured creditors.

Instead, Mandarino stuck with two investors — Glen Fishman and Plainfield Specialty Holdings II Inc. — who plan to work closely with Mandarino’s company, Traxi LLC., Karagjozi said.

“The only way the unsecured creditors and I can be cheated out of what is rightfully ours is if this Court allows Mandarino and his henchmen to ram through the proposed plan without giving me and the members of the committee of unsecured creditors who voted against Mandarino’s plan a reasonable period of time to bring in an alternative proposal,” the court documents say.

Karagjozi was squeezed out from what remains of Kara last month.

The company’s name was also changed, to Maplewood Homebuilders LLC, owned by Fishman and Plainfield.

Fishman of Lakewood, with his brother, Larry, is involved the redevelopment of the ocean district in Asbury Park. Plainfield a Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund.

In 2005, Kara Homes was named one of Inc. magazine’s 500 fastest-growing privately-owned companies in America, reporting sales of over $200 million. But it sought bankruptcy protection from creditors last October, a victim of the slumping real estate market, sticking hundreds of homebuyers with unfinished new homes or frozen deposits.

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