The residents of a condominium at the Upper East Side, some of whom paid more than $4 million for their units, seek a total of $30 million in damages in a federal lawsuit that alleges racketeering by prominent New York developers Aby Rosen and Trevor Davis.

Residents of 188 E. 78th St., known as the Empire, have been battling the developers, a partnership of Mr. Rosen’s RFR Holding and Mr. Davis’s Davis & Partners, since 2001.

Features advertised in the condominium’s offering plan were misleading, and the developers purposely misinformed buyers to reap a greater profit, the residents alleged in the suit, filed Thursday at the U.S. District Court. False advertising included “hardwood floors” that are actually laminate flooring and “maple” kitchen cabinetry that is a composite wood bonded to chipboard, the suit says.

Mr. Davis’s construction firm, Davis Construction, performed the work in the building or was responsible for subcontracting out the work, so the developers were aware of the problems, the suit alleges. The developers used shoddy construction to increase their profit margins, which the suit estimates at more than $100 million, and put the money into other development projects, including 425 Fifth Ave., the Seville, and Park Avenue Place, which the developers built after finishing the Empire, the suit alleges.

Two years ago, the condominium owners and the developers reached a settlement in their dispute, under the aegis of the state attorney general, Eliot Spitzer. Now, the residents charge that the developers have not lived up to the terms of the settlement. Mr. Spitzer’s office declined to take action against the developers, which led the residents to file suit.

“We are taking a more active role in the issue at this point,” an executive at RFR Holding, Frank Mangieri, told The New York Sun. He said RFR “was less involved in the process” at the time problems arose at the Empire.

“We are evaluating what the problems are at this time,” Mr. Mangieri said, “and to the extent there are issues, we will address them and won’t run away from them.”

Mr. Davis, who did not return calls for comment, and RFR Holding are no longer doing deals together, Mr. Mangieri said. If the residents can prove the developers violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, they can be awarded triple damages. They suggest damages of $10 million in the suit, but a jury would decide a monetary award, if any.

The RICO law, which was created a quarter century ago to nab mobsters, has been used in real-estate cases before, but only rarely, experts said. To win under RICO “you must prove intent … showing that the case goes beyond a garden-variety real-estate dispute,” a lawyer at Belkin Burden Wenig & Goldman, Aaron Shmulewitz, said. “This is not easy to prove.”

When the Empire was being built beginning in 1999, apartments were priced between $640,000, for a one-bedroom with no balcony, to $4.15 million, for a three-bedroom apartment with terrace. As interest grew, prices were raised to more than $4.5 million for the most expensive unit, or $1,700 a square foot, according to the offering plan. In a recent listing for a 2,068-square-foot three-bedroom unit in the building, the asking price was $2.95 million, or $1,426 a square foot. The listing agent, Deanna Kory of the Corcoran Group, did not return calls for a comment.

“The Empire was one of the first buildings where people bought apartments straight from the floor plan,” the head of sales at Dwelling Quest, Steen Rasmussen, said. In 1999 it was the start of a development craze, with buyers willing to spend significant money for an apartment preconstruction, when prices are lower, he explained. Now the practice is common.