(New York Post) - Billionaire investor Bill Gross says the months-long legal saga with his oceanfront neighbor in California has him feeling like he is “in a prison” — as his wife says she now fears even going into her own backyard.
Gross – the billionaire PIMCO founder and bond industry legend – and his wife Amy landed back in court this week after their neighbor Mark Towfiq asked a judge to find the couple in contempt for violating a court order that sought to stop them from blasting loud music outside their Laguna Beach home.
If found guilty, Gross could be sent to jail.
“I fear going into my backyard,” Amy Gross, a former professional tennis player who married Bill Gross in April testified this week. “I couldn’t have my wedding reception there. I couldn’t have my birthday there.”
“I’m being monitored 24-7 inside my home,” she said in Santa Ana Superior Court. “I’m very frustrated.”
Bill Gross, 77, also lamented that the much-litigated squabble has pushed him and his wife back into the public spotlight against his wishes.
“I’ve been trying to have a reputation to die with, and this is not constructive,” Gross said Tuesday in court.
It’s the latest development in a feud that began last year after Towfiq was bugged by a protective net Gross installed above a glass backyard sculpture that allegedly blocked Towfiq’s view from his own house.
He lodged a complaint about the net with local officials in June of 2020 — and the retired PIMCO founder fired back by blaring music at earsplitting volumes, including Led Zeppelin and the themes to “Gilligan’s Island” and “Green Acres.”
But Gross and Schwartz countered in court that Towfiq was an obsessed “peeping tom” who “watched, leered at, photographed, and videotaped” the couple in their home for more than a year.
They sued Towfiq for invasion of privacy and other violations in October, and he filed his own harassment complaint a day later.
In December, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Knill slapped the Grosses with a three-year restraining order banning them from playing music outside their home when no one is in the backyard pool area.
They’re also barred from contacting or coming within five yards of Towfiq and his wife, Carol Nakahara, except in connection with legal proceedings or if they’re on their own property.
Knill also shot down Gross’ claims that Towfiq harassed him and Schwartz by recording them and peeping at their home. She did chastise the tech entrepreneur for filming one video of Gross in his backyard, though she said the incident didn’t constitute harassment.
Now, Towfiq is alleging that the Grosses violated that restraining order in July when they played loud music and Amy Gross yelled and sang loudly. Towfiq submitted video from his iPhone, security camera and body camera footage from cops who were called in response to a noise complaint as evidence.
Gross’s lawyer Patricia Glaser has accused Towfiq of weaponizing the restraining order in an effort to send Gross to jail.
Gross — worth an estimated $1.5 billion, according to Forbes — is famous for his colorful clashes. He sued PIMCO, the investment behemoth he founded in 1971, for his 2014 ouster, claiming a “cabal” of junior managers plotted against him to increase their share of the bonus pool.
After his divorce was finalized in 2017, his ex-wife accused him of leaving their 13,819-square-foot Laguna Beach home, which she won in the divorce, a smelly mess, including dead fish in the vents. Gross denied the allegations.
And last year, as The Post exclusively reported at the time, Gross attempted to thwart his estranged son’s efforts to sell rare “Inverted Jenny’’ postage stamps he had inherited. The stamps ended up going to auction after the story ran and selling for $1.9 million.
By Will Feuer
September 22, 2021
