Bruce Ratner is buying the son of one of his fiercest opponents a Beemer.
The Atlantic Yards developer has settled a lawsuit filed by opponent Peter Williams after Williams’ son was arrested for removing a Ratner-owned surveillance camera from a hallway in a building owned by Williams.
“I can’t tell you how much we got,” said Williams. “But Lars is looking to buy the most expensive BMW.”
The family’s building, on Sixth Avenue between Pacific and Dean streets, is within the Atlantic Yards footprint, but has not yet been acquired by Ratner. It sits adjacent to a Forest City Ratner–owned building, and the Williamses had allowed the development company to use their hallway as an emergency exit.
But after a surveillance camera materialized in that same hallway, Lars Williams took it down. Later, he was arrested for it.
Upon his release, he and his father promptly filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court against Ratner; his vice president, James Stuckey; and Michael Machuch, who signed the police complaint against Williams. The lawsuit charged that Ratner had no right to install the camera on the Williamses’ property or have Lars Williams arrested.
Forest City Ratner has refused to comment on the case and would not even confirm that it had been settled.
But Peter Williams said the settlement has been a financial boon for his son.
“Now, Lars can study cooking in London for three months,” said Williams. “No one likes to be arrested. But if you can pay off your student loans and pay your lawyers’ [$28,000 legal] bill, worse things could happen.”
“Lars is happy,” added Williams. “In the final analysis, it was not a terrible thing.”
