(News.com.au) - A divorce that scandalised New York society has quietly settled for more than a billion dollars.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Israel Englander — one of the world’s richest men — has agreed to pay former wife Caryl upwards of $US1 billion ($1.5 billion) after she left him for a woman following more than 40 years of marriage.
The divorce settlement comes after Caryl, 68, filed an astonishing civil lawsuit alleging the 74-year-old Millennium Management co-founder — who is worth $US11.3 billion ($17 billion), according to Forbes — “became enraged” when she “fell in love” with Swiss gallerist Dominique Levy, 55.
Ms Levy owns the prestigious Dominique Levy Gallery on Madison Avenue, which sells works by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, Cindy Sherman and Jackson Pollock, Page Six reports.
The divorce settlement comes after Caryl, 68, filed an astonishing civil lawsuit alleging the 74-year-old Millennium Management co-founder — who is worth $US11.3 billion ($17 billion), according to Forbes — “became enraged” when she “fell in love” with Swiss gallerist Dominique Levy, 55.
Ms Levy owns the prestigious Dominique Levy Gallery on Madison Avenue, which sells works by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Frank Stella, Cindy Sherman and Jackson Pollock, Page Six reports.
In the civil suit, filed on February 9, the two women alleged Israel “terrorised” them both in a supposed effort to bilk Caryl out of billions in the divorce by making her sign a 2020 postnuptial agreement.
The filing was mysteriously withdrawn a week later — and the divorce was just settled privately out of court.
Caryl’s lawyer Peter E Bronstein, from Rottenstreich, Lieberman, Farley LLP, exclusively confirmed to Page Six, “Caryl is happy to have settled their issues privately and amicably.”
“The agreement does not allow either party to discuss the terms.”
Israel’s lawyer John Teitler didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The Englanders’ 40-year marriage deteriorated in 2016 following Israel’s “repeated unfaithfulness to Caryl,” she and Levy had claimed in the civil lawsuit, filed in New York Supreme Court.
Plus, “She fell in love with another woman, Dominique,” the suit states.
Israel — named the highest paid hedge funder of 2020 with earnings of $3.8 billion — then “set out to terrorise the two women to force a break in their relationship, believing he could intimidate Caryl into ‘waking up’ and coming back to him,” the filing alleged, adding, “As he openly confessed to numerous people in Dominique’s professional circle, Israel vowed to “destroy” Dominique and her business.”
“He simultaneously intimidated and defrauded Caryl into executing a series of trust agreements and other financial documents — culminating in the November 2020 postnuptial agreement — that stripped her of her equitable share of the billions of dollars of marital assets that the couple had built and accumulated together over four decades of marriage,” the suit continued.
The suit also alleged that the hedge fund titan also carried out a “years-long campaign of duress” against the two women, having them followed and photographed, hacking their emails and phones.
Plus, it alleged he did “unconscionable things — in his campaign to destroy Dominique,” including allegedly sparking a meritless ACS investigation into her treatment of her children.
Then, “In late September 2017, while Caryl and Israel were celebrating the Jewish High Holidays together with their family, Israel outed Caryl to their children without her consent and disclosed Caryl’s relationship with Dominique, whom he labelled a “viper.”
“Israel attacked Caryl in front of their children and blamed Dominique for destroying their family. And he put a price-tag on Caryl’s happiness: He told their children that Caryl’s relationship with Dominique would cost them $450 million in tax liabilities if Caryl and Israel were to separate or divorce,” the suit added.
Because of Israel’s “campaign of terror … Caryl was barely eating or sleeping,” and she agreed to a 2020 postnuptial agreement “under duress, thus forfeiting billions of dollars of joint marital property that she and Israel had built together over more than 40 years of marriage.”
Israel got “more than 95 per cent of the value of their marital assets, and near total control over the few assets and funds available to Caryl,” the filing claimed.
A source said of the battle, “He scared the living hell out of Caryl and he scared the life out of her girlfriend. Dominique’s art business was almost destroyed, he tried to cut out most of her clients, and he threatened he could kill her in business because he’s so powerful.”
The former couple, who married in 1975, has three grown children.
A second source told us that many in society believed Caryl’s decision to leave Israel for Levy had, “left him deeply humiliated, made worse by the fact that Caryl leaving him for a woman at this stage in their lives was the talk of New York Society.”
The massive divorce settlement is said to include a portion of the former couple’s massive real estate portfolio and sizeable art collection.
In 2014, the Englanders paid a then-record $US71.3 million ($106 million) for a duplex apartment at New York’s swanky 740 Park Ave, one of the city’s landmark buildings for powerbrokers according to Bloomberg.
They purchased the sumptuous 18-room spread for family members to visit despite owning another apartment in the building, it was reported.
Then in 2020 they bought a $US38 million ($56 million) townhouse on E75th Street from the embattled Sackler family, which with their company Purdue Pharma has spent the past several years embroiled in scandal surrounding America’s ongoing opioid crisis.
The former couple also has a large waterfront estate in Greenwich, CT, estimated to be worth over $US25 million ($37 million) which features six bedrooms and 11 bathrooms over nearly 10,000 square feet.
Israel also owns a $US22 million ($33 million) apartment in Paris, bought in 2022. The former couple had listed their two Miami Beach penthouses, for a total of $US45 million ($67 million) last year.
They have previously been named one of the top 200 art collectors in the world, and are also big figures on the New York philanthropy scene, having given millions of dollars to Jewish organisations, including the Jewish Museum.
Israel sits on the board of Weill Cornell Medical Center, and Caryl, a photographer, is chair of the board at the International Center of Photography.
By Emily Smith
March 30, 2023
