What Happened to NRIA? 22% Paid Back So Far to Investors

This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice. The page covers National Realty Investment Advisors, LLC (NRIA) and its Fund, NRIA Partners Portfolio Fund I LLC. It is not First National Realty Partners, a separate company with a similar name.

What NRIA was, and what the documents allege

NRIA was a real estate development firm in Secaucus, formed in 2006, with projects in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida. According to its own Disclosure Statement it also ran funds. Investors put money into private placements, and from 2018 into one Fund. The Disclosure Statement says the Fund received about $625 million, that the private placement memoranda often guaranteed investors 10% to 12% annual returns, and that billboards were placed at the entrances to the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels.

Four documents describe the fraud allegations, and they do not agree on the total. They are not measuring the same thing:

On October 13, 2022 the SEC sued NRIA and four former executives, alleging a Ponzi-like scheme. The SEC alleged that investor money was used to pay distributions to other investors and for personal and luxury purchases, and it asked for injunctions, disgorgement and penalties. NRIA and the Fund had filed for Chapter 11 on June 7, 2022, four months earlier. We did not find a final judgment in the SEC case.

The criminal case

The U.S. Attorney for New Jersey announced an 18-count indictment, unsealed on October 12, 2022, against NRIA's president, Rey E. Grabato II, and Thomas Nicholas Salzano, whom it called the firm's shadow chief executive officer. The release said Grabato remained at large that day. The charges included conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States, and DOJ said they also conspired to evade $26 million in tax liabilities. On the same day, NRIA's former head of sales pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Salzano later pleaded guilty and was sentenced on November 12, 2024 to 144 months in prison and three years of supervised release. The release says his plea agreement included an $8.52 million forfeiture money judgment, full restitution of $507.4 million, and $6.46 million to be paid to the IRS. We found no document in this research showing where Grabato's case stands, so we say nothing about it beyond the 2022 release. In the bankruptcy, the trust reports a default judgment against both men and a third defendant in an adversary proceeding.

The bankruptcy plan: who gets paid what

NRIA and its affiliated debtors were jointly administered under Case No. 22-14539 before Judge Sherwood. The plan was confirmed on August 10, 2023 and created the AIRN Liquidation Trust, which sells the properties and pursues lawsuits. Three features decide what an investor receives:

• Contributing Investor Settlement. An investor's Class 5 claim is allowed at the Net Investor Claim Amount on the Investor Schedule, and the investor contributes to the trust any claims against third parties, such as banks or advisers. In exchange the trust waives suits to recover payments the investor received before the petition. A court order of October 21, 2024 sustained the trust's first omnibus objection to contributing investors' claims to carry out the settlement.
• Net, not gross. The claim is cash the investor paid in before the petition date, minus all payments received back. Guaranteed returns that were never paid, rollover bonuses and "phantom" interests do not count. The Disclosure Statement says there were about $33 million of phantom Fund Interests, issued to about 475 investors who paid no cash for them.
• Opting out. Investors who opted out get nothing until all claim objections and trust lawsuits against them are finally resolved. The trust's balance sheet notes a reserve for non-contributing investors who do not yet have allowed claims and have not received the first two distributions.

The Disclosure Statement (May 18, 2023) estimated net realizable value of the remaining properties at about $168.3 million and projected 25%-35% for Class 5. It put recoveries for later classes (subordinated claims and equity) at 0%.

A worked example, labelled as our arithmetic and not as anyone's claim: an investor who paid in $200,000 and received $30,000 back before June 7, 2022 would have a net claim of $170,000. Two payments of 10% and 12% of that is $17,000 and $20,400, $37,400 in all (our arithmetic). At the projected 25%-35% the investor's total would be $42,500 to $59,500 (our arithmetic). The trust's own statements, not ours, decide any individual claim.

What the trust reported at the end of 2025

The trust's quarterly report for the three months ended December 31, 2025 (filed February 25, 2026) and its monthly report for November 2025 (filed January 7, 2026) are the latest we could read in full. Both are unaudited, and the trust says they should not be relied upon for current or future financial condition.

The trust says the real estate values “are not representative of the current fair value”, pointing back to the Disclosure Statement's $168 million estimate. The 25 listed properties include two completed buildings in West New York (The Station and The Grand), a completed unit for sale on Del Harbour in Delray Beach, three active construction sites, and four pre-development sites. The one sale in the fourth quarter was 1300 Manhattan Avenue in Union City, on December 22, 2025, for net proceeds of $2,153,618.04.

Why “cash” is not “available to investors”: the trust also owes construction and refinanced mortgages, pre-petition claims still being reconciled, and professional fees. Its Advisory Board has fought the wind-down management's pay package in court (opposition filed February 17, 2026). The trust's report lists “disputed investor claims” and says the amount available for distribution may differ materially from the balance sheet.

The trust's lawsuits against third parties

These are the other source of money, and the plan projection excludes them. The trust's reports and court decisions show:

The decisions are about whether a case can go forward, not whether the defendant is liable. Denying a motion to dismiss, for example, means the case continues. It does not mean the trust will win or collect.

What we could not verify

The trust's more recent reports, a monthly report for August 2026 and a quarterly report filed on October 21, 2026, are on the docket, but the claims agent's site blocks automated reading and we could not open them. Until those reports can be read, this page stops at the December 31, 2025 report; when a newer report is readable, the payment totals and cash figures here will be updated from it.

What a reader can do with this

An investor in NRIA is a creditor in a court case with a trust that reports on a schedule. Public steps that do not require anyone's help:

1. Find your claim status in the trust's own notices. The Debtors' claims agent website, named in the Disclosure Statement as omniagentsolutions.com/NRIA, posts the court-filed reports. The monthly and quarterly reports carry the distribution percentages, the cash balance and the property list.
2. Know which category you are in. Contributing investors received the two payments above. Investors who opted out are paid only after their claim objections and the trust's suits against them are resolved.
3. Keep records of what you paid in and what you received back before June 7, 2022, because the net claim is calculated from them, and because a tax treatment of a loss or a recovery depends on your own facts.
4. Read the comparison cases. Receivers and trusts pay on different schedules and with different caps, as the GPB Capital receivership and the Wells Real Estate receivership show.

Repositioning what is left, and the tax treatment of a loss or recovery, are individual decisions.

FAQ

Sources read November 10, 2026: the DOJ press releases of October 13, 2022 and November 12, 2024 (U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Jersey); SEC Litigation Release No. 25558 (October 14, 2022) and the SEC complaint (No. 2:22-cv-06066, filed October 13, 2022); the Disclosure Statement (Case No. 22-14539, Doc 2559, May 18, 2023); the AIRN Liquidation Trust's report notes (Doc 4245, January 7, 2026, and Doc 4280, February 25, 2026); the Bankruptcy Court's order of October 21, 2024 (Doc 4033) and its decisions in Adv. Pro. Nos. 24-01456 (December 13, 2024), 25-01239 (December 31, 2025) and 25-01237 (February 18, 2026); and the Advisory Board's opposition (Doc 4274, February 17, 2026). This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.