Nearly four years after Alex Pissios and his partners sold their Chicago movie studio and its Toronto counterpart for a reported $1 billion, Pissios is battling his cousin and a scrap dealer who claim in separate lawsuits they were cheated out of millions of dollars from the sale.
Konstantinos “Dino” Mirkopoulos, the cousin, says he has proof that he’s owed more than $6 million. He cites a handwritten note signed by his and Pissios’ late uncle Nick Mirkopoulos at the Greek Islands restaurant in 2012 after opening Cinespace Chicago Film Studios.
Ronald Nisson, the scrap dealer, says he’s owed 10% of the money Pissios got from the studio sale as part of a verbal deal they struck in early 2011 when his company lent $400,000 to open the studio in North Lawndale that landed $17 million in state grants.
Pissios and his lawyers deny that either man was cheated but have failed in their efforts to get the lawsuits thrown out of court.
They say Pissios isn’t bound by the deal his cousin struck with their late uncle. And Pissios and his lawyers say any agreement he had with Nisson ended once Cinespace repaid the loan from the scrap company years ago.
Pissios was entangled in three federal criminal investigations while he ran the studio, which has hosted the production of movies and TV shows including Dick Wolf’s “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago Med.”
Faced with the threat of being charged with bankruptcy fraud, Pissios went undercover as a government mole, secretly wearing a recording device to help federal officials convict longtime former Chicago Teamsters boss John T. Coli Sr. of extorting money from Cinespace.
Pissios referred questions to attorney Steven Blonder from the law firm of Much Shelist, who says there have been no efforts to settle the claims from Pissios’ cousin and Nisson.
Mirkopoulos and Nisson didn’t return messages. They are represented by Michael Grill from the law firm of Holland & Knight, who won’t comment.
Both lawsuits describe Pissios’ rags-to-riches story — from a salesman at a Michigan Avenue fur salon owned by Dino Mirkopoulos’s father to a developer building homes near the United Center financed with loans that he and his partner Edward Gobbo got from Washington Federal Bank for Savings, a small Bridgeport bank that federal regulators shut down in 2017 for doling out bad loans to customers including Pissios. Gobbo and Pissios weren’t charged in the bank investigation, which led to charges against 16 people, including bank board members and employees.
Gobbo is a former truck driver for the city of Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation. He’s also a nephew of the late William Hanhardt, a corrupt cop who went to prison after admitting his role in a mobbed-up jewelry theft ring while he was the Chicago Police Department’s chief of detectives.
Pissios filed for bankruptcy
Gobbo and Pissios both went bankrupt.
When he filed for bankruptcy in January 2011, Pissios owed the bank $950,000.
That was as his uncle Nick Mirkopoulos was working to expand the Cinespace operation from Toronto to Chicago.
Pissios got a $100,000 loan from his uncle, but federal officials said he failed to disclose that in his bankruptcy case. They threatened to charge him with bankruptcy fraud. That’s when he agreed to secretly help them make their case against Coli.
Dino Mirkopoulos was working at his father’s fur salon when they had dinner with Nick Mirkopolous on June 27, 2012, at Greek Islands and talked about a contract for Dino Mirkopoulos at the studio, according to the Cook County lawsuit.
“I, Nikolas Mirkopoulos, agree to grant Konstantinos Mirkopouls the same compensation and equity that Nicholas Pissios [Alex’s brother] receives in Cinespace and any associated like companies,’’ though that would take effect only after he worked at the studio for three years, according to the suit.
Nick Mirkopoulos died in December 2013. His death left Pissios and other relatives with greater control of Cinespace.
Four months later, they hired Dino Mirkopoulos. But, according to the cousin’s lawsuit, they didn’t live up to the terms of the deal he’d made with his uncle. He says in the suit that they underpaid him by $6.4 million compared to Nicholas Pissios and then gave him nothing when the studio sold.
“Alex and Uncle Steve [Mirkopoulos, Nick’s brother] refused to pay Dino the value of his equity share set forth in his employment contract,” the lawsuit says. “During one conversation with Dino, Uncle Steve implicitly acknowledged that Dino made the contract with Uncle Nick, yet nevertheless told Dino: `but he died.’ ”
Besides Alex Pissios, Dino Mirkopoulos also is suing Pissios’ brothers Dean Pissios and Nicholas Pissios as well as Steve Mirkopoulos and Mark Degnen, a former financial officer for the studio who is married to Cook County Commissioner Bridget Degnen.
$400,000 loan, with strings
Pissios was in bankruptcy when he asked Nisson, a longtime friend, for a $400,000 loan to help finance the studio, according to Nisson’s lawsuit, filed in Lake County. At the time, Cinespace was awaiting approval of a $5 million state grant from then-Gov. Pat Quinn.
Nisson’s C&R Scrap Iron & Metal agreed to the loan. But he insisted on conditions that included placing a lien on the home of Pissios’ parents. He says the deal included an oral commitment from Pissios for a 10% cut of the proceeds when the studio was sold.
After Cinespace repaid Nisson’s loan, the lawsuit says, Pissios repeatedly confirmed that Nisson would get money from any sale — assurances that continued at a birthday party for Nisson’s grandson two months before the studio was sold in the fall of 2021.
Using one of his nicknames for Nisson, Pissios reportedly said, “Rabbi, you have nothing to worry about.”
Pissios’ lawyer says in court documents that the “alleged oral promise” to give Nisson a share of the studio sale proceeds became moot in the fall of 2013 when Nisson accepted repayment of his company’s $400,000 loan with 20% interest.
As Pissios and his partners were preparing to sell the studio in 2021, federal court testimony revealed that he owed money to a bookie linked to a reputed mob figure. Pissios, who has acknowledged his gambling debts to federal investigators, owed money to Vincent DelGiudice, who admitted running an illegal gambling ring with ties to a mob-connected bookie. Pissios wasn’t charged in the gambling case.
Pissios now runs Alecko Capital, an investment company for which his brothers also work. He has invested more than $50 million in 16 commercial and residential projects, from Rush Street to a golf course in Orland Park, according to records filed with the Cook County clerk.
Five of those loans — totaling more than $9.4 million — involve apartment buildings owned by companies whose managers include Steven DeGraff, a partner in the Much Shelist law firm. Pissios and Cinespace have a longtime relationship with the law firm, which is trying to get the lawsuit filed by Mirkopoulos and Nisson dismissed.