Billionaire hedge fund manager ‘terrorized’ gallery owner’s estranged wife and girlfriend amid divorce

A high-flying New York artist couple are trying to unravel the terms of their previous divorce, arguing that their billionaire hedge fund manager ‘terrorized’ them into agreeing to unfair terms.

Caryl Englander, the 68-year-old president of the International Center of Photography, divorced her husband Israel Englander, 74, in 2020, citing their multiple infidelities.

She began dating Swiss-born gallerist Dominque Levy, 55, the former long-term partner of ‘Carol’ producer Dorothy Berwin.

On Thursday, Caryl Englander and Levy filed a lawsuit against Israel Englander, accusing him of trying to break them up: hiring private investigators, making bogus calls to report them to the NYPD for child abuse and embarking on a media smear campaign.

The two women were so “traumatized” by his tactics, the lawsuits filed Thursday, that they signed an unreasonable divorce agreement. Now they are requesting that the case be reopened.

Israel Englander, who is worth $11.3 billion according to Forbes, has yet to comment.

Born in Brooklyn and working on Wall Street before founding Millennium Management in 1990, Israel and his ex-wife were socialite philanthropists. The couple donated generously to hospitals and cancer charities, as well as Jewish organizations, and were well-known patrons of the arts, funding exhibitions at the Guggenheim and MOMA.

Their marriage of 40 years began to deteriorate in 2016 after his “repeated infidelity to Caryl,” she said in Thursday’s presentation.

In December 2017, Caryl bought a $60 million penthouse in a Park Avenue tower overlooking Central Park, which Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez also called home.

He stayed in the $71 million Park Avenue mansion they bought in 2004.

When Caryl and Levy started dating, Israel Englander “became furious,” the new couple claim in their lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court, alleging he tried to break them up.

The billionaire “set out to terrorize the two women in order to force a break in their relationship, believing he could intimidate Caryl into ‘wake up’ and come back to him,” the filing alleges.

In court documents obtained by The New York Post, the couple claim the irate ex-husband embarked on a “year-long campaign of coercion” against the two women.

They claim that Englander hired private investigators to follow and photograph them; he hacked into his emails; and interfered with her family lives, with Englander referring to Levy as a ‘viper’ when she talked to her children.

The duo allege in their court filing that Englander paid to be “aggressively” followed and surveilled in New York and abroad.

In August 2017, the two women went to Italy and were followed by private detectives, they claim.

Caryl and Levy accuse Englander of ordering “near constant” surveillance, claiming that he “appeared to know exactly where Caryl was going and what she was doing at all times,” the court documents state.

Court documents state that Englander “wanted to punish Caryl and deprive her of her rightful and equitable share of the billions of dollars in marital property that he and Caryl had built together over the course of their marriage.”

Also, they claim, he tried to “destroy” Levy’s gallery by hiring a company to obtain confidential information about her business and falsely claiming that she had committed tax fraud “on US authorities, seeking to provoke an unwarranted government investigation of her,” the lawsuit alleges. .

Widely considered one of New York’s most influential art dealers, Levy currently works at an Upper East Side gallery she owns, as well as galleries in London’s Mayfair, Paris and Hong Kong.

Levy and her girlfriend accuse Englander of trying to ruin her reputation by smearing her to senior figures at Christie’s and Sotheby’s, and even threatening to stop turning her lucrative business over to auction houses if they continued to work with her.

Englander, according to the lawsuit, tried to arm the media against Levy, giving reporters tips on alleged wrongdoing.

Court documents claim he tried to “get the media to attack Dominique,” and a Bloomberg reporter sent Levy several inquiries about confidential business transactions, forcing Levy to hire a media relations specialist.

In September 2017, Levy was reported to the New York police for abusing her children, then ages 7 and 14, and Levy and Caryl say Englander was behind the false accusations.

The agency conducted multiple checks on her children at home and at school by making them undress to check for bruises, the filing alleges.

Ultimately, she was forced to file a lawsuit against the NYPD and the New York Administration for Children’s Services to protect her family, the lawsuit claims.

Caryl Englander further claims that her ex-husband forced her to sign documents without her lawyer present and concealed the true value of her wealth.

She said that he promised to leave them alone, if she signed the divorce agreement: in 2020, she complied.

Caryl claims that her ex-husband has “more than 95 percent of the value of their marital assets and near complete control over the few assets and funds available to Caryl.”

Friends and her lawyers advised her not to sign, Caryl said.

But, in Thursday’s filing, she said she signed because “she was very traumatized and very desperate that Israel would intimidate her and Dominique into stopping.”

Englander’s representative did not respond to DailyMail.com’s request for comment.