Edited by: TJVNews.com

As divorce proceedings go in the world of the wealthy, powerful and affluent, this one has taken some interesting twists and turns. Page Six of the New York Post recently reported that Israel Englander, a billionaire hedge fund manager allegedly “terrorized” his estranged wife and her new girlfriend in an effort to bilk her of billions in their divorce settlement, according to court papers filed by the women in a new suit. Englander, 74, is the co-founder of Millennium Management.

The Post reported that the hedge fund manager  “became enraged” when his wife Caryl Englander, 68, “fell in love” with Swiss gallerist Dominique Levy, 55. On Thursday, the lawsuit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court said that upon discovering that his wife had a romantic involvement with another woman it was then that Englander launched efforts to squelch their relationship, the Post reported.

The lawsuit said that Englander who is “one of the world’s richest men” had utilized his vast fortune to execute a “years-long campaign of duress” against the two women, the Post reported. He had them followed and photographed as well as hacking their emails and phones. He also interfered with their family lives, the suit claims.

The court papers also indicated that the 40-year marriage between Englander and his wife Caryl hit an irreparable snag in 2016 when it was discovered that Israel was “repeatedly unfaithful to Caryl.” This was stated in the lawsuit by Caryl and Dominique, the Post reported.

The Post also reported that the court filing has alleged that when Caryn and Levy fell in love, Israel “set out to terrorize the two women to force a break in their relationship, believing he could intimidate Caryl into ‘waking up’ and coming back to him.” The suit also alleged that the hedge fund manager’s efforts at harassing his wife and her partner commenced in 2017.

The court papers also said that Englander targeted  his wife and her girlfriend by having them followed and surveilled by private investigators and former cops in an aggressive manner, the Post reported. They pair was followed while they were in New York as well as when they traveled together. The suit claims they were surveilled and followed during an August 2017 trip to Italy, the Post reported.

The suit also alleges that those that Englander hired conducted  “near-constant” surveillance of the pair which included accessing their e-mails and phones, the reported indicated. The court documents claimed that Englander “seemed to know exactly where Caryl was going and what she was doing at all times,” the Post reported.

Moreover, the court papers say that Englander allegedly  “wanted to punish Caryl and deprive her of her rightful, equitable share of the billions of dollars in marital assets that he and Caryl had built together over the course of their marriage.”

The Post reported that the suit also alleged that Englander’s aim was to “destroy” Levy’s gallery by hiring a company to get confidential information from her business and falsely claiming she had carried out tax fraud “to US authorities, seeking to prompt an unwarranted government investigation of her.”

The filing also claims that Englander’s vengeance took its form in his attempts to destroy Levy’s reputation in the art world, the Post reported. He apparently tried to defame Levy to senior representatives at both the Christie’s and Sotheby’s auction houses. He even threatened to stop giving his lucrative business to the auction houses if they continued to work with Levy, the filing claims, as was reported by the Post.

The suit also claims that Englander had people pretend to be journalists in order to get “dirt” on Levy from both former and current employees, the report indicated. Moreover, the court filings show that Englander had made attempts to “get the media to attack Dominique”.  He had one reporter from Bloomberg send Levy several inquiries referencing confidential business transactions which compelled  Levy to hire a media relations specialist, as was reported by the Post.

In addition. the court filings say that Englander brought bogus abuse allegations to child services in New York which showed up at Levy’s door with the NYPD on Sept. 14, 2017, to investigate the treatment of her kids – then 7 and 14, the Post reported. The agency carried out multiple checks of her children at home and at school making them strip to check for bruises, the filing alleges.

Levy had to hire lawyers and spend thousands defending herself against the “manufactured” accusations she faced both in business and with her children, the Post reported. She was eventually forced to file a lawsuit against the NYPD and New York’s Administration for Children’s Services to protect her family, the suit claims.