The Greenwich chairman and CEO of Robert K. Futterman and Associates was arrested and charged with aggravated driving while intoxicated under Leandra's Law after being stopped in Bridgehampton Saturday night with four children under the age of 16 in his vehicle, police said.
Leandra's Law (Child Passenger Protection Act) is a New York State law making it an automatic felony on the first offense to drive drunk with a person age 15 or younger inside the vehicle, and setting the blood alcohol content, or BAC, at 0.08. The bill was unanimously passed by the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate and then signed into law by Gov. David Paterson on November 18, 2009.
The law is named after Leandra Rosado, an 11 year old girl, was killed on the Henry Hudson Parkway in New York City on October 11, 2009 when her friend's mother, Carmen Huertas, flipped the car they were in while allegedly under the influence of alcohol. Six other children were also injured during the incident.
Robert Futterman, 52, who is one of the most prominent and powerful names in Manhattan Greenwich retail leasing, also was charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child and aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle.
Robert K. Futterman & Associates, is the largest independent retail agency in New York.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has hired Futterman to serve as a consultant on the estimated 500,000-square-feet of retail space planned for the new World Trade Center; that he was chosen to consult on the project suggests Futterman might also get to lease the space once it's actually complete. He's looking to expand his business overseas these days, too, particularly to construction-crazed Dubai.
Although his company started out tiny, it's grown considerably and now boasts 75 brokers in its New York office alone, with a growing presence in the Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Miami markets. His main competitors are Jeff Winick's Winick Realty Group and Bruce Sinder's Sinvin realty, as well as the retail brokerages at conglomerates CBRE, Cushman and Wakefield, Newmark Knight Frank, and Prudential Douglas Elliman, which is run by Faith Hope Consolo.
When a national chain is looking for primo New York real estate to sell their wares, Futterman is often one of the first people they call. His firm has repped Diesel, Barnes & Noble, Sephora, H&M, the Gap, Trader Joe's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and French Connection.
Plenty of big developers have tapped Futterman to fill their storefronts, too: Over the years, Futterman has hunted down tenants for the likes of Gary Barnett, Edward Minskoff, Paul Milstein, Steve Witkoff, Harry Macklowe, Steve Roth, Joseph Sitt, Jerry Speyer, Aby Rosen, Louis Dubin, and Bruce Ratner.
His standout deals include leasing all the retail space at the renovated Grand Central Station and brokering the deal to place Apple in its glass-cubed flagship store on Fifth Avenue. But his biggest project in recent years was leasing all 347,000-square-feet of retail space at the Time Warner Center, bringing in tenants like Williams Sonoma, Hugo Boss, and Whole Foods on behalf of co-developers Stephen Ross and Bill Mack.
These days, Futterman's busy working on behalf of Miki Naftali and Elad to lease the 160,000 square feet of retail space in the renovated Plaza Hotel.
Robert Futterman, the chairman and CEO of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, was divorced, he was featured in a 2006 magazine piece celebrating the new freedom recent divorcés had to decorate their own places.
And Futterman did indeed explore his true colors. He showed off a purple, or eggplant-colored, living room in his Greenwich, Conn., home, where a black pool table was paired with a photograph of a Chinese man in a tub surrounded by women.
A similar sense of liberation pervades the retail real estate broker's newer apartment in the Porter House, a West 15th Street condominium in the Meatpacking District.
The three-bedroom, three-bath condo — which, according to the property deed, Futterman purchased from Us Weekly editor Janice Min for $3.15 million in 2005 — is where he rests his head on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when he is not staying in Greenwich.
Before he founded RKF in 1998 at the age of 39, Futterman worked at Garrick-Aug Associates.
Currently RKF has 107 employees and four offices nationwide.
Since he started his real estate career, Futterman says he has completed more than $3 billion worth of leasing transactions. His Manhattan space is filled with dramatic artwork, the rewards of that successful career. He converted one of the bedrooms in the apartment, where dark blue and black colors predominate, into a home office where he has hung a large, realistic painting depicting a nude woman.
In the living room, a statue of a group of street thugs with death's heads for faces is made of fiberglass and tinted dark purple with auto-body paint. Futterman said he even briefly considered buying a Damien Hirst skull. "At the time, I thought I was going to buy one," he said with a laugh. "Then I thought, a single guy living in Chelsea with a skull — isn't that a little bit too much?"
Futterman, 51, seems to have struck a balance between the freewheeling and the functional in his "crash pad," which is 2,271 square feet, and has a bedroom shared by his two sons, Jesse, 15, and Kevin, 13.
He shares custody with his ex-wife.
One of Robert K. Futterman’s favorite photographs shows his kids standing in front of what is now the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue.
Hanging in the empty window behind them is, of course, a sign sporting Papa Futterman’s own blue “RKF” logo, inspired by his “real-estate hero,” Edward S. Gordon, and his longtime client, the GAP.
Mr. Futterman, whose GAP-inspired signs have come to dominate Manhattan storefronts over the past 15 years (and are now also cropping up across Los Angeles and Las Vegas) from Time Warner Center to Grand Central Station to the Plaza Hotel—even the abandoned and notoriously rat-infested KFC-Taco Bell space in Greenwich Village.
Hanging in the empty window behind them is, of course, a sign sporting Papa Futterman’s own blue “RKF” logo, inspired by his “real-estate hero,” Edward S. Gordon, and his longtime client, the GAP.
Mr. Futterman, whose GAP-inspired signs have come to dominate Manhattan storefronts over the past 15 years (and are now also cropping up across Los Angeles and Las Vegas) from Time Warner Center to Grand Central Station to the Plaza Hotel—even the abandoned and notoriously rat-infested KFC-Taco Bell space in Greenwich Village.
Futterman has increased the company's presence in Westchester County and Connecticut. His landlord representation work includes securing new leases in Greenwich, CT with Greenwich Running Company and Sephora at 2 Greenwich Avenue and 75 Greenwich Avenue, respectively.
UPDATE:
Greenwich Roundup Is The News Leader
As Other News Organizations Pick Up The Story
But Where Is Hearst Newspapers And
Greenwich Time Editor David McCumber?
Is He Too Busy Protecting The Town's Rich Folks?
The Local Rag Has Extensively Covered New York's Leandra's Law,
But Clams Up When A Wealthy Greenwichite Is Arrested Under The Law.
The Real Deal New York (blog) - 11 amRobert Futterman, founder, chairman and CEO of Robert K. Futterman & Associates, was charged with driving while intoxicated in Bridgehampton Saturday night, Newsday reported. The crime is classified as a felony under a law passed in New York State that imposes tougher sanctions on intoxicated drivers who have children in the car. The police report had Futterman "failing to maintain his travel line" while driving southbound on Sag Harbor Turnpike at 10:27 p.m. Saturday, with four children in the vehicle under the age of 16. In April, Futterman told the The Real Deal that he had two children, ages 18 and 16.Futterman was also charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child. It's not the first time high-producing real estate agents have been arrested forDWI on the East End. In 2009 Corcoran Group's Gary DePersia was arrested and charged in Montauk for the crime and last year, his ex-wife, Charlotte DePersia, was charged with drunk driving. Futterman's office declined to comment to The Real DealMan Driving Four Kids Charged with DWI
Patch.com - - 8:57am
NYC Real Estate Big Wig Charged for Violating Leandra's Law
Robert K. Futterman, 52, of Greenwich, CT arrested for allegedly driving drunk with kids in car.
The founder and CEO of Manhattan real estate and management firm Robert K. Futterman & Associates was pulled over in Bridgehampton Saturday night and charged with aggravated DWI under Leandra's Law, which elevates a DWI charge to a felony if there is a child passenger in the vehicle.
Southampton Town police said Robert K. Futterman, 52, of Greenwich, CT was driving southbound on Sag Harbor Turnpike when he was stopped at 10:27 p.m. for failing to maintain his travel lane. Police said it was determined he was intoxicated, and there were four children in the vehicle, all younger than 16.
Futterman was additionally charged with four counts of endangering the welfare of a child and a count of aggravated unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle. He was held overnight and arraigned in Southampton Town Justice Court.
NYC exec with kids in car charged in DWI
Photo credit: Getty Images | Developer Robert K. Futterman at the Young Audiences New York's 7th Annual Children's Arts Awards Gala at Cipriani Wall Street on March 10, 2008 in New York City.
A prominent Manhattan real estate broker was charged in Bridgehampton with driving while intoxicated and endangering the welfare of his four passengers, all between 12 and 15, officials said Monday.
Robert K. Futterman, 52, of Greenwich, Conn., was arrested just before 10:30 p.m. Saturday as he drove with the four youngsters on the Sag Harbor Turnpike near Hampton Court, police said.
Futterman,...
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