ROUGH SEIZE

When platinum-collar criminals get pinched, their pricey property is sometimes seized by the feds. It happened to Bernie Madoff (who lost his five-bedroom residence in Palm Beach, Fla., a 55-foot yacht and a 24-foot fishing boat). And now the authorities have taken the Southampton beach house of alleged scam artist James Nicholson .

The oceanfront mansion, built in 1994, is a traditional three-story, 10,000-square-foot home with nine bedrooms and 7½ baths. It has 222 feet of oceanfront plus pond views. The house includes a double-height great room, a formal dining room, a solarium and a third-floor master suite, all with fireplaces. There’s also a 55-foot gunite pool, a Har-Tru tennis court, a three-car garage and a one-bedroom staff apartment.

Nicholson, a hedge-fund boss who was recently indicted for what prosecutors said was a $150 million Ponzi scheme, closed on the home for $27 million in January. Nicholson had originally signed a contract to buy the mansion (which was listed at a whopping $65 million) from John and Lauren Veronis for $33 million, but he renegotiated at the closing table. Soon after, he put it back on the market for $33 million with John McHugh of Sotheby’s International Realty. Despite the latest price tag, the property has since been appraised for just $25.5 million.

Nicholson has quite the real-estate portfolio. He also owns an $8.5 million condo in the Time Warner Center (which he bought last May); a $5.75 million house in Saddle River, NJ; a $4.75 million penthouse in Palm Beach and a $377,500 condo in Montvale, NJ.

However, all his properties, including the Hamptons mansion, are now worth less than $40 million combined. And when mortgages, back taxes, late fees and broker fees are factored in, they would net only $13.8 million, said receiver Lee Richards in a 40-page report filed with the US District Court in Manhattan.

By the time the FBI arrested Nicholson in February, they could find only $8,000 in cash and discovered that Nicholson was overdrawn by $2.2 million from several bank accounts. He’s been in jail ever since, unable to raise $10 million bail. His wife, Donna, filed for divorce last March.

Lenz crafter

Kudos to Dolly Lenz , whose latest listings include Alexis Stewart’s $12.4 million TriBeCa penthouse. After Lenz won Prudential’s top nationwide broker award (out of more than 62,000 brokers) for an unprecedented six consecutive years, she received the Prudential Legend award in Las Vegas.

Lenz is also listing a fifth-floor co-op at 2 E. 67th St. for $39.5 million. Jonathan Tisch set a record for that building last year when he bought an 11th-floor residence for $48 million.

Take Liberty

Want a bird’s-eye view of Ground Zero and a celebrity neighbor? A full-floor apartment has just come on the market at 114 Liberty St., the building where Russell Simmons has famously hosted parties in his penthouse duplex.

Ninth-floor loft owner Howard Steinberg , a retired Wall Street lawyer who worked as general counsel for the Bank of Nova Scotia and Japan’s Momura Securities, is listing the 5,400-square-foot apartment for $5.97 million. He bought the five-bedroom condo for $4.3 million in 2006.

Steinberg currently lives in the apartment with his wife, Lilly , and their four children but says he is ready for a change. The apartment includes 4½ baths, 12-foot ceilings, a fireplace and four exposures. The building is full-floor lofts from the fourth floor up and is also currently home to beauty mogul Sonia Kashuk .

Prudential Douglas Elliman’s Gary Kabol has the listing.

Quinlan’s quandries

Flashy Irish investor and ex-tax inspector Derek Quinlan is quietly unloading his US properties, including an Upper East Side townhouse with a $37 million asking price.

The 13,000-square-foot limestone mansion at 20 E. 64th St. is listed by the aforementioned Dolly Lenz and Monique Silberman of Prudential Douglas Elliman. Quinlan bought it four years ago for about $26 million from investment banker Roberto de Guardiola and his socialite wife, Joanne . It was the second-most expensive townhouse sold in New York that year. (The top townhouse was Gianni Versace’s home, sold by his family for $30 million.)

The townhouse, built in 1857, has five bedrooms, two terraces, a gym, a massage room, basement staff quarters and a library. Quinlan had been renting it for $90,000 a month before putting it on the market.

He is also selling his 10,000-square-foot office building on the same street for $19.8 million that he bought for around $14 million in 2005. That new price is a 25 percent drop from the $27.3 million asking price he started with last October. The building’s history includes being the former home of the New York Observer.

Sotheby’s International Realty is handling the sale and glowingly mentions its Federal-style façade, sweeping spiral staircase and 30-foot-long living room.

Quinlan also owns a Malibu, Calif., property (which he also wants to sell) that he is developing with an eco-chic theme. His partner on that project is his Malibu neighbor, U2’s aging guitarist The Edge , a k a David Howell Evans.

The Edge and Quinlan are also partnering to redevelop the five-star Clarence hotel in Dublin. But Quinlan has put his offices up for sale in Dublin.