Edens Plaza's Former Owner Ordered To Pay Over $2 Million

CHICAGO — Less than a month after he was released from federal prison early due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the former owner of Edens Plaza was found to have misappropriated money from co-investors and ordered to pay more than $2 million, Crain's Chicago Business reported.

Larry Freed, 57, formerly of Wilmette, was convicted in 2016 of bank fraud, mail fraud and making a false statement to a financial institution in connection with a scheme to secure a $105-million line of credit for city and suburban commercial real estate developments.

Records show Freed began serving a three-year sentence in January 2018 and was due to remain in prison through April 2021. But in May he was transferred to home confinement in Chicago, and last month a judge ordered his sentence modified following his attorney's motion for compassionate release due to COVID-19 pandemic.

Three former executives with Freed's defunct real estate development firm, Joseph Freed & Associates, filed suit against him in Cook County court in 2017. Norris Eber, David Kirshenbaum and Al O'Donnell alleged he diverted money they were owed for his own use, including to pay his legal fees, Crain's reported.

Following a bench trial last month, Circuit Judge James Snyder ordered Freed to pay more than $2.3 million to the three plaintiffs.

Edens Plaza LLC, owned in part by the successor to Freed's firm, sold all of the shopping center other than the vacant Carson's to Newport Capital Partners for nearly $72 million.