One of Douglas Elliman’s top agents in New York City has left the firm after more than two decades.
Jessica Cohen has moved to Brown Harris Stevens to form a new team, the brokerage announced. Joining her from Elliman are Joseph Polivy and Elia Clemente, who will serve on Cohen’s team alongside BHS’ Tara Osbourne.
The cohort will work from BHS’ office on the Upper West Side.
“In my introduction to Bess and the managers at the company, there was so much personal and professional history that connected me,” Cohen wrote in a statement. “They were so thoughtful and caring in the way they approached me.”
While at Elliman, Cohen consistently landed among the top 3 percent of the company’s brokers nationwide, earning her the Pinnacle designation announced at the firm’s annual Ellie awards. Last year, Cohen also took home a lifetime achievement award from Elliman.
Cohen’s team, then a six-person cohort, closed roughly $33 million in sales in 2023, according to the latest numbers available from RealTrends.
Now under the BHS banner, Cohen is planning to launch 10 listings later this week, according to a spokesperson for the firm. Earlier this year, Cohen brought the buyer of a $7 million penthouse at 104 Charlton. She also represented the buyer in the sale of Unit 45B at Central Park Tower, which closed for $12 million in November.
“Jessica’s reputation and consistent success speak for themselves,” BHS CEO Bess Freedman wrote in a statement.
A spokesperson for Elliman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cohen was initially cast in Bravo’s “Million Dollar Listing New York” alongside celebrity brokers such as Ryan Serhant and Fredrik Eklund, but she was fired after three months of filming. Cohen chalked the network’s decision up to her not being “interesting enough,” she told The Real Deal in 2013.
Cohen’s departure comes after other veteran agents have exited Elliman for other firms. Just last week, Dennis Mangone, known for his work with developers like hotelier Ian Schrager, jumped from Elliman to Compass. Lisa Simonsen, also at Elliman for nearly 20 years, joined Brown Harris Stevens last fall.
Departures from the firm picked up last year after a period of mounting losses and significant executive shakeups at Elliman. The company announced in October the abrupt retirement of its longtime CEO and chairman, Howard Lorber. Days later, the firm fired the CEO of its brokerage segment, Scott Durkin.
Lorber’s retirement came at the behest of Elliman’s board of directors, which had ordered an internal investigation into the company’s culture after sexual assault allegations surfaced against two of its former top brokers, Tal and Oren Alexander, and their brother Alon. During the probe, Lorber admitted to having intimate relationships with agents at the firm, including Cohen.
Cohen accused Tal and Oren of drugging her in an account she provided to the New York Times, where she described waking up in the hospital following a 2010 party attended by the three brothers. She recounted the allegation to then-Elliman executive Dottie Herman in the days after the party and to Lorber in 2012.
A spokesperson for Elliman said in response to the Times report that an agent had told a senior executive that she’d blacked out at a party, but the information was shared confidentially and no formal complaint was ever made.
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