NEW YORK CITY-Law firm Stroock & Stroock & Levan and itsdeveloper clients won a reprieve this week on Attorney GeneralAndrew Cuomo’s bid to force the firm to release some $16 millionfrom an escrow account for a 41-story luxury condominium project onthe Hudson River in Manhattan.

Several condominium buyers at the Rushmore development whowanted their deposits back because of a one-digit typo made by aStroock lawyer that altered a closing date in the project'soffering documents were backed by the attorney general, who orderedthe money released from escrow.

The developers on whose behalf Stroock was holding the money,Carlyle Realty Partners and Extell Development, retained Boies,Schiller & Flexner, which obtained a temporary restrainingorder on May 10 from Southern District Judge George Daniels. Thejudge then dissolved the order on May 18 and denied the developers’motion for a preliminary injunction. But Richard N. Cohen ofFriedberg Cohen Coleman & Pinkas, who represents some 32plaintiffs, says Judge Richard Wesley of the US Court of Appealsfor the Second Circuit stayed Judge Daniels' decision pendingreview of the case by a three-judge panel.