Michael Dezertzov (Hebrew: מייקל ×"זר‎; born 1 April 1941), known as Michael Dezer, is an Israeli-American real estate developer and car collector. He is the founder of Dezer Properties and known for his investments in New York and Florida real estate in association with Donald Trump.
Biography
Dezer was born in a working-class family in Tel Aviv, Israel, the son of a bus driver. He served in the Israeli Air Force.
In 1962, he immigrated to the U.S. where he went to night school and worked in advertising before starting a typesetting business. He then started investing in real estate and founded Dezer Properties in New York City which focused on the Chelsea neighborhood, which was then transitioning into an arts community from its former identity as a manufacturing center. As of 2013, Dezer owns and manages 1.3 million square feet of commercial space in Chelsea.
In the 1980s, he purchased a number of ocean front plots in Miami and, in partnership with Donald Trump, developed numerous properties including the $900 million Trump Towers, the $600 million Trump Grande Ocean Resort and Residences and the $166 million Trump International Hotel and Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.
Dezer is also the landlord of the luxury auto retailer Manhattan Motorcars.
Criminal probe
In May 2017, Brazilian Federal Police launched "Operation Miami Connection" to shut down a money laundering scheme it accused Dezer Properties of being involved in. Dezer Properties is behind the Porsche Design Towers Brava, a luxury condominium to open in 2022 that is being marketed to foreigners in Praia Brava on Santa Catarina Island in Brazil. The Brazilian authorities alleged that a contractor laundered more than R$12 million (US$4 million) through Dezer Properties as "licensing fees" paid to Porsche SE. According to Brazilian media, the FBI and the Brazilian federal police are cooperating on the investigation, which involves three businessmen from the United States and Germany.
Personal life
Dezer is of Russian descent. He is married to fellow Israeli Noemi (née Kerekes) and has three children: daughters Leslie Dezer Salmon (born 1970) and Estee Dezer Gurwitz (born 1978); and son Gil Dezer (born 1975). All his children participate in the family business. His son Gil is currently developing the 60-story Porsche Design Tower in Sunny Isles Beach.
Dezer collects cars and has over 1,000 cars in the Miami Auto Museum in North Miami. The collection has diverse types of cars like European classics, American classics, microcars, movie cars, supercars to military vehicles. Adding to the cars, he has hundreds of other vehicles like Motorcycles, Scooters, Bicycles and the largest collection of Vespas displayed at the museum. As his collection went on growing, he launched 2 outposts of his main Miami Auto Museum. In 2014, he opened Hollywood Cars Museum in Las Vegas by partnering with classic and exotic car dealer Hot Rod City to display more than 100 cars from movies, TV shows and videos. In 2016, he bought a space in Xtreme Sports Park in Fort Lauderdale to open the second outpost of his main museum to display about 200 cars.
During the 2016 U.S. election, Dezer donated $100,000 to Trump's Make America Great Again PAC.
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