12Legal morass
W’chester slay-suicide pa entangled in lawsuits
A WEALTHY Westchester County property manager who gunned down his wife and daughter before killing himself was locked in litigation when he pulled the trigger.
Steven Dym also wasn’t any stranger to lawsuits and unhappy clients — and even an aggrieved elevator business — over the years, the Daily News has learned.
Court papers show Dym, 56, was fending off a lawsuit claiming he mishandled client money when he carried out the grisly murdersuicide Friday at his Pound Ridge home. Dym blasted his wife, Loretta, 50, and daughter Caroline, 18 (photo inset), with a 12-gauge shotgun. He then shot himself in the head, authorities said.
The murders happened in a house the Dyms recently put on the market for $1.7 million. One local resident said the home had sold the day before the crimes.
Dym led Gabriel Management Corp., a property management company in Bayside, Queens. Last August, former clients sued Dym and his company.
Robert Walsh, a lawyer for the property owners, told The News at least $180,000 in tenant payments to Dym’s company wasn’t reflected in management reports. Walsh said Dym also “refused to turn over the books and records because he claimed he was owed some management fees for the last month of management.”
Walsh said his clients got tired of what they felt was Dym giving them the runaround.
“First he claimed he couldn’t find them, then he claimed he knew where they were but he had to go look for them, then he claimed he couldn’t find them again. So we brought a lawsuit,” Walsh said.
Dym’s lawyer could not be reached for comment. His legal problems didn’t stop there. According to attorney Barbara Matarazzo, around 2013, Dym was improperly cutting $85,000 in checks to himself from a SoHo co-op he was supposed to be managing. Matarazzo said the co-op collected its $50,000 insurance policy limit about a year later to right Dym’s wrongs. The co-op made a police report, she said. The NYPD said it has no arrest record for Dym.
In 2014, Dym also got hauled into Manhattan Supreme Court by a property owner who claimed Dym’s management businesses botched job duties, including failing to collect tenant security deposits. That case settled last year.
Additionally, Thyssenkrupp Elevator Corp., which installs and maintains elevators, sued Gabriel Management in 2010. The elevator giant said the company wasn’t paying its invoices. The case settled in 2011.
Trooper A.J. Hicks, a public information officer for the New York State Police, declined to comment on the murder investigation or whether there was any connection to Dym’s litigation.