Wall Street Folly

The home where Seth Tobias tragically died has been put on the market by his widow, Filomena.  Purchased for $4.1 million in 2006, the asking price is now $7.8 million. According to Page Six:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds, Real Estate

Did you really think that central Tobias case figure Bill Ash would fade quietly into the night and that you’d never again have your fix of him? Not to worry He’s back:   With the probate case settlement forged between drowned hedge fund manager Seth Tobias’ wife Filomena and his brothers, we thought that we were near the end of the posts on this salacious and tawdry case.  But gay pimp/ Tobias assistant(?)/Filomena’s tele-psyschic Billy Ash naturally wanted another word in the case.  Or many of them.  He’s "very happy with recent developments" in the case, and claims to know "all the details of the settlement". And he’s going to sue Filomena and her younger sister for $1 million. He sent us (and no doubt tons of other blogs and newspapers) the following in an email:

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

Guess we won’t be hearing from gay pimp turned accuser BIlly Ash,  Tiger, the gay male porn star/ stripper, or any of the other wacky cast of characters in the sensationalized Seth Tobias death mystery any time soon because the fight over his estate, which was supposed to begin on Monday, has apparently been settled.  While Filomena Tobias was never charged with murdering the drowned hedge fund manager, the probate trial was expected to dredge up all of the unsavory allegations made against her, including claims that she laced his pasta sauce with Ambien. But according to the Palm Beach Post, the Missus has cut a deal with Seth’s brothers which will settle the probate case and the trial won’t go forward.  According to Seth’s father, Sidney Tobias, "We’ll be making a statement through our attorneys," and the family’s Palm Beach attorney, James Pressly, had no comment.

Family member says Tobias case will be settled - Palm Beach Post

Tobias Brothers, Widow Make Last-Minute Settlement Deal - WPBF.com

Prior Seth Tobias posts

Tags: Hedge funds

For days and days CNBC watchers have been bombarded with teasers on an in depth tv expose on the bizarre /salacious life and death of hedge fund manager Seth Tobias.  The show finally airs tonight at 9PM Eastern time. And again at midnight. (And no doubt will air over and over and over after that if you don’t catch it / Tivo it in one of the first  showings)

Tags: Hedge funds, Hookers

This just keeps getting weirder and weirder:  Bill Ash is hell bent on keeping the heat on Seth Tobias’ widow, Filomena, even though at this point she’s been cleared of any wrong doing in his death.  Is he a creditable source at this point?   He’s been accused of trying to extort money out of Filomena, although he claims that it was for legal expenses.  We’ll let you be the judge whether he is or isn’t credible. He’s claiming that there’s been a cover up by the Florida authorities and that they’re in bed with Filomena and her ex-husband / lawyer Jay Jacknin. And he ties the name Jeffrey Epstein also is tied into the mess for good measure.

Ash also sent us (and no doubt many others) a disturbing picture of Seth that he said that he says Filomena took of him in the bathtub on the day he died, where he appears in a completely drugged up state.  Be warned….

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

It’s official.  Filomena Tobias is off the hook, unless new evidence surfaces…

In a letter addressed to Jupiter Police
Department Detective Brent Hoosac Monday, Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann
Duggan wrote that the State Attorney’s Office did not find any criminal activity
in the drowning death of Seth Tobias.

"Based upon the evidence available at
this time, including the autopsy and toxicology reports, there is no indication
of criminality in the death of Mr. Tobias," Duggan wrote.

Tobias Widow Will Not Face Charges In Drowning Death – WPBFTV.com

Tags: Hedge funds

The weird story only gets more weird with the exhaustive New York Magazine tome on the life and death of Seth Tobias. It’s a must read.  Lots of details including:

Seth’s childhood…..the founding of his hedge fund Circle T Partners, his propensity for partying…Filomena’s story, her violent temper and seeming emotional instability, her drugs.  How Seth and Filomena got together….their dysfunctional relationship…their drinking and drugs…their marital problems….The Tiger connection (he’s married now with a kid)…The voodoo connection…Seth’s financial problems….Accounts of what was going before his death….Seth’s plans for a divorce…The will — Filomena wasn’t mentioned in it, how it wasn’t changed after the S & F married, and how she could wind up with everything as a result…..How Billy Ash fit into the equation as Filomena’s psychic, or as he claims, the Tobias’ assistant — And one of the strangest details: How Billy and Filomena apparently have never even met in person but only had a relationship over the phone and via text messages. The article also probes Billy Ash’s past and story and casts more doubt on his credibility than any other pieces we’ve seen.  But he was right about the toxicology report. So did she do it?  Unless there’s more evidence that’s uncovered in the future that actually ties the wife to his death, other than just suspicion and lots of bizarre coincidence, we may never know, because it sounds like she’s going to be off the hook….

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

According to the Palm Beach Post, even though a heap of bizarre evidence has seemed to mostly point in one direction — at her — it sounds like Mrs. Seth Tobias (aka Filomena aka Phillis) is actually going to be off the hook for her weathy hedge fund manager husband’s suspicious drowning.  And it may pave the way for her to grab his $30 million estate, no doubt much to the chagrin of Seth Tobias’ brothers and self-proclaimed Tobias assistant Billy Ash, who’s claimed all along that Filomena had poisoned and drowned Seth.

The widow of former CNBC pundit and hedge
fund wiz Seth Tobias probably will not be charged in connection with his
mysterious death last year, Page Two has learned.

Mike Edmondson, spokesman for State Attorney Barry Krischer, said a final
determination in the Jupiter case that fascinated the nation will be made this
week, but it probably will not include murder, manslaughter or any other charges
against socialite Phyllis Tobias.

"Jupiter police have forwarded their entire file to us," Edmondson
said, "and it doesn’t contain any allegation of a crime. That generally
means that the agency just wants us to review their work as a way to close out
their case."

 

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

Can you spell B-L-A-C-K  W-I-D-O-W?:  The toxicology reports are finally in, and a small amount of cocaine, alcohol and the sleeping drug Ambien were found in the drowned hedge fund manager’s body.  That bolsters the claims that Seth and Filomena Tobias’ assistant, Billy Ash,  has consistently made — that Filomena drugged him by lacing his pasta with crushed Ambien before he died.  Ash’s lawyer, Deborah Opri, believes that even without her client’s testimony that there would be enough there to finally charge Filomena.  The toxicology tests are being reveiwed by the Jupiter, Florida police department and will be sent to the state attorney’s office which will decide whether to go forward with criminal charges….

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

But the author of best-selling "The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need" notes a coincidental connection:

"My dad, Seth Tobias, died in 1983. He
was a wonderful, wonderful man, and to me there was only one Seth Tobias,"
Andrew explained. "It was more than a little unsettling to read ‘his’ name
24 years later – especially under the circumstances." 

Not My Brother – Page Six New York Post

Tags: Hedge funds

Those nasty threats that Filomena Tobias made against her future-drowning-victim-husband husband Seth (see our report from over the weekend with the transcript) are "irrelevant" according to the grieving widow’s lawyer, Gary Dunkle.  His spin according to Rush & Malloy in the NY Daily News: the comments were made 18 months before Seth’s death "when they were going through a divorce. They later reconciled. She did not murder her husband." 

Are the messages irrelvant?  They sound pretty relevant to us, even if they are 18 months old.  Anyone else really believe Dunkle’s interesting spin?

Tags: Hedge funds

Seth Tobias vs Filomena:  This case just keeps getting uglier and uglier.  Scary instant message conversations between Seth Tobias and his wife Filomena portray the relationship as clearly dysfunctional (kinda sorta an understatement as you’ll see).  And Filomena is completely enraged, ranting and spewing massively F-bomb laced venom and threats, telling Seth how much she hates him, how she wishes that he’d rot in hell, and proclaiming that "NOW IT’S WAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".

Here are the IMs:.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

Lots more salacious stuff coming out of the Seth Tobias case.  Was Filomena having an affair with her trainer?  Yes, says former assistant and central case figure Billy Ash.  But from the Filomena camp, it’s deny, deny, deny.  "We deny everything that comes out of Mr. Ash’s mouth," per Filomena’s lawyer, Gary Dunkel.

And the trial over who gets Seth’s fortune was postponed indefinitely by a Palm Beach County judge as his brothers continue to gather more evidence that Filomena was responsible for his death.  According to a CNBC report this morning from Scott Cohn, Tobias took a major financial hit only four months before he died.  Tobias had agreed to reimburse investors more than $12 million out of his own pocket after losses generated by a rogue trader at Circle T. (That was roughly a third of his estate, which was valued at some $25 million at the time he died). Tobias filed a $48 million arbitration claim against the broker — Bank of America Securities.  Tobias won the case, but was awarded a fraction of that — only $850K –  by the arbitration panel.  Cohn says that Tobias was "devastated", leading to a downward spiral of drinking, drug use and partying.  And his fighting with Filomena also escalated.  Tobias reportedly told Filomena that he wanted a divorce two weeks before he was found floating dead in his pool, which Billy Ash alleges was caused by Filomena after she laced his spicy pasta sauce with a boat load of Ambien.

According to an email we received from Billy Ash, 380 crushed Ambien were found in Filomena’s safe."      

According to court documents, a crime lab
chemistry report shows that two Ziploc bags seized from the couple’s home the
night of Seth Tobias’ death contained .28 grams of cocaine and 3.86 grams of
crushed up Ambien.

Lawyers said that, according to a drug handbook, 3.86 grams is the equivalent of
at least 380 doses of Ambien

.Still there is no criminal investigation in this case.  And many of us still wonder why, given that so much points in Filomena’s direction…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

Filomena Tobias laced her spicy pasta sauce with crushed Ambien sleeping pills so that she could lure him into the pool according to the couple’s former aide Bill Ash.  Filomena in turn has continually questioned Ash’s credibility, trying to prevent his testimony in her quest to grab her dead hubby’s estate.  So he recently submitted to a lie detector test by Joseph Paolella, a top polygraph expert, and "passed the test with flying colors" according to his attorney, Debra Opri…..

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Hedge funds

This morning’s New York Post highlights Filomena Tobias’ prior failed marriages:

The wife of a New York hedge-fund hotshot
who was found dead in his pool in September already had three bitter divorce
battles in her past before the rocky marriage now at the center of a legal war
over his $25 million estate.

Filomena Tobias was born Phyllis Manente to
a middle-class family in northern New Jersey in 1966. Her first marriage was to
fishmonger Vincent Racanati in 1984 at age 18. The pair had one child, and he
divorced her four years later, in part because of her wild spending.

"She wanted the life of the rich and
famous. I couldn’t give it to her," Racanati said.

So she began trading up. Next came Arthur
TolenDini, a twice-divorced stockbroker 14 years her senior. The marriage fell
apart in late 1991 after just three years.

A year and a half later, she married
Jacknin, a successful Palm Beach lawyer. The marriage lasted nine Years, and the
pair had two children, but by 2002, Jacknin filed for divorce.

According to Billy Ash, one of the key figures in this case and Filomena’s earliest accuser, who commented on our blog last week, her marriage to TolenDini was tumultuous and "eventually became contentious enough for the court to issue restraining orders against both parties."

A Widow Of Opportunity – New York Post

Tiger, the mysterious  gay porn star / dancer who’s been mentioned in the Seth Tobias murder mystery has been found and is talking.

"I’m happy to talk with the
police," said blond dancer and porn star Christopher Dauenhauer, who uses
the stage name Tiger.

"I have nothing to fear," he
said. "I looked at the time of death. I was at work in Nevada."

The 31-year-old dancer and porn star – who
has tiger stripes tattooed on his muscular body – said he hadn’t been in touch
with the Tobiases and isn’t sure he ever met them.

"This guy may have had a fantasy about
me," he said. "Maybe during his drug binges, he got into this frame of
mind where he built our meeting into a relationship.

"Or maybe he’d seen one of my
videos," he added, referring to porn flicks like "Roar of the
Tiger."

Read the rest of this entry »

More news surrounding the Seth Tobias death mystery:  According to CNBC, his grieving Mrs.has filed a a motion in a Florida court aimed at preventing controversial former personal assistant Billy Ash from providing any testimony.   Ash has said for some time now that he has evidence that Filomena Tobias
murdered her husband, and now his brothers have also joined the ’she’s
a black widow’ camp.  You can see the CNBC news report here.

Earlier WSF posts on the Tobias case

Addendum: Billy Ash commented on our blog.  He said:

"You won’t believe…LOL. Phyllis’s attorney’s filed a motion to try to
block me from ever being able to testify. You can call Debra or
Pressely to verify. All they did is give me more creditability. Police
called and said if I stop talking they’ll release the report within the
week."

New details are emerging in the death of hedge fund manager and frequent CNBC commentator Seth Tobias.  The New York Times has a piece this morning with new revelations of how his brothers are now also accusing Filomena Tobias of murder as well as how she spent nearly $10k to have the pool where Tobias drowned drained and resurfaced just days after his death:

But now an unfolding drama over Mr.
Tobias’s estate is providing a lurid account of fast money and faster living
in the volatile world of hedge funds. Mr. Tobias’s four brothers and Mrs.
Tobias are locked in a legal battle over the estate, which is worth at least $25
million. And, in a civil complaint, they have gone so far as to accuse her of
murder.

The brothers, Samuel, Spence, Scott and
Joshua, claim Mrs. Tobias drugged her husband and lured him into the pool. Bill
Ash, a former assistant to Mr. Tobias, said he had told the police that Mrs.
Tobias confessed to him that she had cajoled her husband into the water while he
was on a cocaine binge with a promise of sex with a male go-go dancer known as
Tiger.

Mrs. Tobias’s lawyers call the claims
outrageous. She has not been accused of any crime.

The mystery deepened when it emerged that
Mrs. Tobias spent $9,628 to have the pool drained and resurfaced days after her
husband died, according to documents filed in an unrelated case.

“I don’t understand why this hasn’t
ended up on ‘CSI: Miami’ yet,” said Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s
stock-picking show “Mad Money” and Mr. Tobias’s former boss on Wall
Street.

Read the rest of this entry »

More details are emerging from in the case of the mysterious death of Circle T Partners’ Seth Tobias including a "white powdery substance" said to be cocaine having been found in his home. Self proclaimed assistant Billy Ash told local Palm Beach TV station KPBF that hedge fund manager Tobias  "was an alcoholic and he was abusing prescription drugs and cocaine that he was seeing a counselor for in Philadelphia — that was hidden from all the investors."    He also said that Tobias’ widow Filomena’s heavy spending had put a strain on the couple’s marriage. While he claims that Filomena killed him (which she denies), the police are still classifying the case as a death investigation and not a homicide.  They await the toxicology reports.  Also according to KPBF:

Police found the body of Tobias, 44, nude
in the pool of his $3 million Jupiter mansion with abrasions on his nose,
forehead and back on Sept. 4, according to a police search warrant.
Investigators said they found his wife, Filomena Tobias, holding her husband’s
body on the steps of the pool.

According to a search warrant obtained by WPBF, police searched the couple’s
mansion and found a small Ziploc bag containing a white, powdery substance, as
well as another small baggie with a straw and two empty plastic prescription
bottles, WPBF reported.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Divorce, Hedge funds, Obits

Seth Tobias’ wife Filomena, aka "Phyllis", claims that she had nothing to do with the death of her husband, as Billy Ash, who says he was the couple’s former assistant, has accused.  The grieving widow had words of her own for Ash. She disputes that he was their assistant, but says that he was her "spiritual adviser".  (Oy!) She’s accusing Ash of trying to extort money from her in a vendetta:

"I didn’t do anything to hurt my
husband. I loved him. I have nothing to be ashamed of!"

Phyllis Tobias, 41, who has been described
by several acquaintances as a great mom to the two kids she had with previous
husband Jay Jacknin, a local lawyer, lashed out at Billy Ash.

"I’m broken. I haven’t gone out in six
weeks," the widow told Page Two. "I’ve been in and out of the
hospital. I just pray all day and wonder why people could be so evil. All those
rumors are disgusting. He’s a very sick man who should be
institutionalized."

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Divorce, Hedge funds, Obits

New allegations from William Ash,  the gay pimp turned Seth Tobias’ and his wife’s personal assistant have turned up on Finalternatives.   Ash told them that Tobias’ wife, Filomena,  killed the hedge fund manager, and it wasn’t her first attempt.  He claims that the marriage was a sham and that in fact, Tobias — Filomena’s third husband — was gay.  Filomena was said to have confessed to Ash in a phone conversation, although that’s not on tape.  However, the Jupiter, Florida police apparently have recordings of "hundreds" of calls between Ash and the possible black widow.

William Ash, who says he worked for five
years as a personal assistant to Tobias and his wife, told FINalternatives that
Tobias’ widow, Filomena, is responsible for his death. Ash also claims that
Filomena confessed to murdering Tobias, her third husband, in a phone call the
week of his death.

“A few days later, in a conversation, is
when she just started talking about what happened on Sunday, going into Monday,
and then how she eventually did it Monday night,” Ash said. He claims that
Jupiter, Fla., police recorded “hundreds” of calls between himself and
Filomena.

“It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle,” he
says of their subsequent, recorded conversations, which began the Friday after
Labor Day and continued through last Friday. “You have to put all the tapes
together.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Divorce, Hedge funds, Obits

Billy Ash, a former Lauderdale-based gay
pimp who called himself "Mr. Madam," has become a key figure in the
continuing police investigation into the death and the battle for Tobias’
millions

And then there’s "Tiger." That’s
the stage name of the go-go dancer at the WPB gay hangout Cupids who was
supposed to be deposed in the probate fight…… 

Ash — who was arrested at least 11
  times in South Florida from 1983 through 1997 for prostitution, bouncing
  checks and staying in a hotel without paying, according to law enforcement
  records — says he was the Tobiases’ personal assistant for two years. 

He quit shortly after hedge-fund whiz
  Tobias, 44, was found floating in the pool of his $3 million home at the Bears
  Club. Ash e-mailed what appears to be a pay stub showing he received a $3,000
  payment from Filomena on Sept. 2, two days before the death.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Divorce, Hedge funds, Obits

Seth Tobias, 44, who ran hedge fund $250 million Circle T Partners and who frequently appeared on CNBC, has died:

Tobias’ wife found the well-regarded CNBC commentator’s body about 1 a.m., floating facedown in his pool in an exclusive section of Jupiter, Fla., near Palm Beach.

"I don’t want anybody to jump to any conclusions," said Sgt. Scott Pascarella, a spokesman for the Jupiter police. "We aren’t even classifying it as a suspicious death at this point."

There were no obvious signs of foul play.

CNBC commentator Seth Tobias found dead in Florida pool – New York Daily News

Tags: CNBC, Hedge funds, Obits