Sammy El Jamal, a controversial and litigious local businessman, is back in court. This time he's suing Dunkin' Donuts and blaming the company for blowing a concession deal at Westchester County Airport. Wochit
A Westchester County businessman with a litigious history is at it again.
Sammy El Jamal, a gas station mogul who once blamed 'pro-Israeli judges' for a verdict against him, is now suing Dunkin' Donuts for $90 million and blaming the coffee shop franchise for the demise of his concession stand at Westchester County Airport.
In court papers filed this week in U.S. District Court in White Plains, El Jamal claims the coffee and donut giant cost him $500,000 in renovations and thousands to have Dunkin' Donuts train his employees, only to have the company back out of the deal.
El Jamal, who has either sued or been sued more than a dozen times over the past decade, filed the new claim on behalf of Airport Mart, Inc., one of his many companies.
LAWSUIT: Read the court papers
CLAIM: El Jamal blames 'pro-Israeli judges'
VERDICT: El Jamal hit with $4.8M judgement
He said his company was even forced to buy supplies from one of its competitors.
"A Mart not only lost money for useless training and the cost of the unnecessary equipment, but also suffered lost profits from that point on, for the duration of the franchise agreement, as it would have been much cheaper to parbake the goods in house than to purchase them from a competing franchisor," the lawsuit said.
Michelle King, a spokesperson for Dunkin' Brands, Dunkin' Donuts' parent company, said in an email Thursday, "we are unable to comment due to pending litigation."
El Jamal's attorney, Yenisey Rodriguez-McCloskey, did not return calls.
El Jamal, 43, of Purchase, built his business empire by operating a chain of gas stations in New York and Connecticut. But he has also had a stake at the county airport for years, starting with a newspaper and coffee stand at the terminal.
He later expanded the stand and, in 2012, was awarded county contracts to also operate a bar, restaurant and sushi bar on the second floor of the terminal.
The county later awarded some of those contracts to other operators.
But El Jamal has continually found himself in court, including in suits and counter suits with former gas station business partners in New York and Connecticut.
In 2014, El Jamal and an associate, Brian Orser, were also sued by a former employee who claimed he was wrongfully arrested for assault based on fraudulent complaints filed by El Jamal and Orser.
Brent Coscia, who worked for El Jamal's gas stations, filed his lawsuit after he was acquitted of criminal charges. In June 2014, a jury ruled against El Jamal and awarded Coscia $4.88 million.
In a news release issued after the verdict, El Jamal blamed "a hostile compilation of pro-Israeli judges," including state Supreme Court Justice Lester Adler, who is Jewish and presided over the Coscia civil trial.
El Jamal's release said "several Jewish judges from the State Supreme Court in Westchester County are openly discriminating against him as an Arab-American litigant and cooperating with his adversaries in court against him."
El Jamal's wife later sued him for divorce, a move that Coscia attorney Marc Oxman alleged was a ruse to protect El Jamal from having to pay the settlement.
The case remains pending in court based on a number of appeals that have been filed.
In El Jamal's most recent court case, he accuses Dunkin' Donuts of violating their franchise agreement and foiling his chances of keeping his coffee stand.
The lawsuit said Airport Mart and Dunkin' Donuts signed a deal in 2010 to operate a franchise at the newspaper stand El Jamal had run at the airport since the prior year. The agreement was for five years, but El Jamal said "Dunkin' represented that this would be a long-term relationship."
A few months later, El Jamal signed an agreement with Westchester County to expand the stand on the first floor of the terminal by 150 square feet, and later by an additional 300 square feet, according to the lawsuit.
Airport Mart spent more than $550,000 on the expansion, and paid for employees to spend four weeks training with Dunkin' Donuts out of state, and two weeks of training for managers at the shop.
But in 2014, the lawsuit said Airport Mart lost the space when the airport issued a request for bids and awarded it to a new vendor. The lawsuit said Dunkin' Donuts "refused to assist A Mart in securing an extension of the lease."
El Jamal said Dunkin' Donuts also refused to assist when he tried to move the coffee stand to "an alternative location" in the secured section of the terminal.
While he said he lost that lease, El Jamal still operates other food concessions at the airport.
The lawsuit seeks $90 million plus legal fees and expenses. Lawyers for Dunkin' Donuts have not yet filed a written response to the lawsuit in court.
Facebook: Jorge FitzGibbon; Twitter: @jfitzgibbon