A last-minute bankruptcy filing aims to block auction of ‘The One’ mega-mansion

The developer of “The One” mega-mansion filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday in a last-minute bid to stop a scheduled auction of the sprawling estate. The trustee’s sale of the home once marketed for $500 million was scheduled after Crestlloyd defaulted on $106 million due to Hankey Capital, the real estate lending arm of L.A. billionaire Don Hankey. The auction in Pomona Civic Center Plaza has already been delayed twice, most recently Oct. 13 after another lender — Joseph Englanoff’s Yogi Securities Holdings — alleged that Hankey pulled out of a deal to have the house completed and listed by real estate brokers for $225 million. C. Kerry Fields, a professor of clinical finance and business economics at USC’s Marshall School of Business, said the bankruptcy filing was the only legal maneuver Niami had to stop the auction. Yogi lent Crestlloyd $30.2 million in 2018 and is still owed $22 million, according to an earlier declaration Englanhoff filed in support of a temporary restraining order to halt the auction.