White Vans, Fed Probes and Missing Wine: In Latest Episode of Sherry-Lehmann Saga, NY Wine Shop Faces $3.6M Lawsuit Over Unpaid Rent

Chris Adams, former co-owner and chief executive of Sherry-Lehmann, was with the company before Shyda Gilmer took over. Adams has been named in the suit but has yet to be served. (Photo: AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

A Hong Kong-based property company named Glorious Sun is suing the New York wine shop, Sherry-Lehmann, and all of its former owners for $3.6 million. According to the New York Post, the firm — which is Sherry-Lehman’s former landlord — is not only suing the shop’s current owner, Shyda Gilmer, but all the previous owners over the past 17 years.

The suit, filed by Glorious Sun, stems from the shop having backlogged rent from March 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Glorious Sun claims that all former owners of the wine shop are “guarantors” on the lease, which would make them accountable for the outstanding rent payments

One of the defendants is Michael Aaron, whose father founded Sherry Lehman in 1934. Aaron sold his shares of the company in 2007 and stepped down as CEO in 2008, but Glorious Sun is still aiming to hold him liable.

Other defendants include Michael Yurch, a former co-owner and president of the shop from 1996 to 2013, and Chris Adams, Sherry-Lehmann’s former chief executive and co-owner for over a decade. Adams left just prior to Gilmer taking his position and declined to comment to the New York Post on the grounds that he had not yet been served.

The wine shop that once catered to New York’s elite has experienced a high-profile fall from grace that could — and probably should — be made into a movie. Last month, Sherry-Lehmann was raided by the NYPD and FBI in unmarked white vans in what appeared to be an attempt to recover the now-defunct wine shop’s computer system. The shop is currently in the midst of a federal probe after owners Shyda Gilmer and Kris Green were accused of selling over $1 million worth of wine to customers and never delivering it.

The New York Times first covered the news in May, and the shop has been making headlines ever since.

Since the story first ran, Sherry-Lehmann has faced a federal probe. The ongoing investigation is currently being helmed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, the Postal Service, the New York Police Department and the FBI’s art crime team.

The shop allegedly owes the state of New York $2.8 million in unpaid sales taxes and shuttered its doors in March after being shut down by the New York State Liquor Authority.

The landlord’s attorney, Edmond O’Brien, had more than his fair share of things to say about Glorious Sun’s former tenants, who “have not removed their belongings,” O’Brien claimed.

Despite Glorious Sun’s requirement that the space has all belongings removed and be left “broom clean,” it appears the owners of Sherry-Lehman failed to do so. According to The New York Post, as of Tuesday, the shop still had a display of “overpriced” Veuve-Cliquot Orange Label Champagne cases in the window.

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