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ST. LOUIS — A former Lux Living manager is asking a judge to penalize the developer for suing her last year in what she says was a blatant attempt to discern whether she had cooperated with the FBI in an investigation that led to the recent indictment of her former bosses.

Julie Frady’s attorney, Peter Fiore III, filed the motion Thursday asking for attorney fees and dismissal of the lawsuit against Frady. The original lawsuit, filed by Lux construction arm Big Sur Construction, accused Frady of tortious interference and a violation of a noncompete agreement.

But Fiore wrote that the lawsuit was filed in “bad faith� because it did not include any details of the alleged false statements and was actually an attempt to force Frady into a deposition so the attorneys for Lux’s owners could find out what Frady told federal investigators. 

Big Sur is owned by brothers Sid Chakraverty and Victor Alston. Federal prosecutors last month charged the brothers and their chief accountant, Shijing “Poppy� Cao, with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 11 counts of wire fraud as part of a scheme to circumvent St. Louis’s minority hiring rules. All three pleaded not guilty. 

Before the indictment, Chakraverty and Alston were among the city’s most prominent apartment developers. They own thousands of apartments in their own developments and older buildings around the region. Now, they potentially face prison time after prosecutors accused them of submitting fraudulent documents to make it look like they were hiring enough minority- and women-owned subcontractors to meet the city’s hiring thresholds, imposed on developers in exchange for tax abatement and other construction incentives.

The federal investigation into the development firm became publicly known in September 2023, when the Post-Dispatch reported that a federal subpoena for documents related to a Lux Living project had been served on the city’s development office.

In December, Big Sur sued Frady, a former employee who worked on some of their developments. The lawsuit accused her of contacting former co-workers after she left, encouraging them to resign and telling one of them that Chakraverty had been involved in “illegal business transactions.� Lawyers for the developers said that was “a lie.�

Chakraverty’s lawyers quickly sought to force Frady to sit for a deposition. But Frady’s lawyer, Fiore, said in a Feb. 13 email filed with the court that he was filing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and that motion had to be heard before Frady was deposed.

Instead, one of Chakraverty’s lawyers, Ali Olszeski, filed a motion to take Frady’s deposition two days later. Chakraverty’s other lawyer, Renato Mariotti, said they did have the right to depose Frady before the motion to dismiss was heard.

“Your client continues to interfere with Big Sur’s business, and we would be prejudiced if we are forced to wait to determine the full extent to which your client has harmed Big Sur,� Mariotti wrote to Fiore on Feb. 15, according to a copy of the email exchange filed with the court.

Fiore called that reasoning “ridiculous� and accused the lawyers of “strong-arm tactics.� 

“Namely, Plaintiff is solely concerned with deposing Ms. Frady to determine whether and to what extent Ms. Frady has or has not cooperated with the federal investigation into Plaintiff and Mr. Chakraverty’s allegedly unlawful business practices,� Fiore wrote in his motion for sanctions.

Frady referred comment to Fiore, who said she cooperated with investigators and was not involved in Alston or Chakraverty's alleged wrongdoing. 

"It's unfortunate that they created this scenario where their intimidation tactics resulted in Ms. Frady's reputation being sullied," he said. 

Frady was the only former Lux employee actually sued during the FBI investigation. But Mariotti also threatened to sue both St. Louis and another former employee around the same time as the Frady suit was filed. Mariotti accused the former employee of sharing internal documents with third parties, and the developers’ legal team was seeking communications between the city and the FBI. 

Mariotti, of Paul Hastings, and Olszeski, of Chicago-based Faegre Drinker, did not respond to requests for comment. The two lawyers were with St. Louis law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner when they filed the lawsuit on behalf of Chakraverty but have since left the firm.