Wydeven: The magic of David Copperfield can't make this lawsuit disappear

When I was a kid, I remember when the Statue of Liberty was restored. The project began in 1982 and was planned to be completed by 1986 to commemorate the statue’s centennial. President Reagan created the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation (SOLEIF), appointed Lee Iacocca to lead the project and collaborate with the National Park Service.

The project was halted, however, when the statue briefly disappeared. In 1983, our family watched ‘The Magic of David Copperfield V: The Statue of Liberty Disappears’ live on television. Twenty tourists were seated on Liberty Island in front of Lady Liberty. Copperfield raised a giant curtain to obscure the statue, then lowered it a few seconds later to reveal it was gone. A helicopter even hovered overhead to give an aerial view of the missing statue.

While we knew it was a trick, it was still pretty cool. The live audience members appeared to have lost their minds. Not surprisingly, Forbes describes Copperfield as the most commercially successful magician in history.

He started his career in the 1970s and has hosted countless TV specials which have been nominated for 38 Emmy Awards, winning 21. He has earned 11 Guinness World Records, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a knighthood by the French government and has been named a Living Legend by the U.S. Library of Congress.

Copperfield’s Las Vegas shows and world tours have sold more than 40 million tickets and grossed more than $4 billion in revenue. He has his own theater in Vegas where he performs over 500 shows each year, up to three shows each day, seven days a week, for 42 weeks a year.

Obviously, he’s a very busy guy, which would explain why he hasn’t given his New York City condo the TLC it deserves.

Earlier this month, the board of managers of the Galleria Condominium, a luxury high-rise located on East 57th Street, sued the magician claiming that he “trashed” his unit in the building before abandoning it in 2018. Copperfield purchased the condo in 1997, and a year later he transferred ownership to Sky Tower, Inc., a Nevada corporation he owns.

According to the lawsuit, Copperfield left the “formerly pristine” condo, which is the largest in the building and located on the 54th floor, in such a “state of utter disrepair” that it requires $2.5 million in damages to repair the unit, as well as neighboring units and the building itself. The board claims that “the level of dilapidation and decay in Copperfield’s Unit far exceeds a purely cosmetic issue” and that the condo “plainly violates” the building’s upkeep requirements. The suit included photos of severe damage to the unit’s carpeting, walls, ceiling, bathtub and more to substantiate the board’s claims.

The suit enlisted architects who assert that “unrepaired water damage that is so severe that it presents risks to the ‘concrete structure of the building,’” which has also “facilitated the growth of mold and mildew, and actively endangers other apartments in the building.”

According to court filings, Copperfield “notoriously jam packed the Unit with novelties such as fortune telling machines, classic arcade games, and other, more bizarre items like ‘hazing devices’ apparently used by various fraternities during the turn of the century.” The suit further asserts, “In typical fashion, Copperfield refuses to confront the consequences of his actions and denies all responsibility for the damage he has caused to the building and his former neighbors.”

Unlike the Statue of Liberty, unfortunately Copperfield has not been able to make his condo problem just disappear.

Reg Wydeven is a partner with the Appleton-based law firm of McCarty Law LLP. He can be reached at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Reg Wydeven talks David Copperfield lawsuit, damage to New York condo