Russian couple’s spat reveals financial deals, disputes, suits
PALM BEACH GARDENS — When Natalia Mogilevsky was charged on Veterans Day with biting her husband’s wrist at their BallenIsles Country Club home, it let the world in on a tale of divorce filings, allegations of adultery, corporate spying and financial double-dealing, all nested together like the figures inside a Russian Matryoshka doll.
The Palm Beach Gardens
woman appeared the next morning in front of a judge. Also there, in casual garb, were her private attorney and her husband’s. That the men were two of Palm Beach County’s higher-profile defense lawyers was just the start.
Stuart Kaplan stood next to Natalia and made a stunning claim: that his client and her husband fought because Ilia Mogilevsky had taken Natalia’s cellphones, obtained bank account passwords from them and cleaned out the couple’s accounts of $110,000.
“There’s an on going investigation right now,” Kaplan told The Palm Beach Post on Tuesday. He did not say by whom or otherwise elaborate.
Attorney Doug Duncan, representing Ilia Mogilevsky, did not speak at the hearing. He has not responded to a subsequent request for comment.
The legal matter was not the fifirst for the Mogilevskys. Norwas it the fifirst time they have been in the news.
Ilia Mogilevsky was apart owner of a Palm Beach night club, and the couple, immigrants from Russia, are connected to dozens of Florida corporations, most of them set up to flip Florida real estate. Thisyear, Ilia boughta condo in a tower near Miami Beach with a familiar name: Trump Tower III.
Aformer business partner of the Mogilevskys is Gustav “Gus” Renny, himself a frequent investor and entrepreneur. Renny and Ilia Mogilevsky had been owners, with a third partner, of a nightclub at 251 Sunrise Ave. in Palm Beach. Renny said they also were partners in numerous real estate investments.
Twoyears ago, Renny sued the Mogilevskys, claiming they and their relatives hid some real estate transactions from oversight. And from him. They sued him back.
Palm Beach Gardens police say Natalia bit her husband Nov. 11 in front of their children, ages 12 and 3. The police report said Natalia told offifficers, “I’m going to be arrested because I bit him a little.”
In court Nov. 12, the 39-year- old woman was released on her own recognizance, but Judge Gregory Keyser conditioned that on her having no contact with Ilia. When Keyser included, for now, no contact with her children, Natalia buried her face in her hands. It’s not known if either the husband or children were in the courtroom.
Police said neither person had a prior history of domestic violence. What they did have a history of, even if just for nine days, was a divorce filing.
Natalia Mogilevsky’s divorce lawsuit, fifiled Nov. 2 in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, contends that, at her husband’s insistence, she was a stay-at-homemom. It says Ilia “has been secretive about his income, fifinancial dealing, assets and liabilities.” She alleges Ilia “misappropriated, dissipated, hypothecated, secreted and/ or removed funds and or assets.”
She’s not alone. Renny sued in December2015, naming the couple, their parents and no fewer than 49 corporate entities. The Mogilevskys countersued in January 2016.
Renny contended Ilia transferred 28 properties out of their partnership to stiff Renny out what should have been a 50 percent share of their profits. Lawyers for the Mogilevskys responded that the partnership was “imaginary” and no paperwork supported its existence. They also said Renny had no proof for his claims of fraud.
Local court records show no criminal charges ever were filed against either Mogilevsky.
Renny also contended he caught an office administrator of the partnership pressing her cellphone to his door to record his conversations. He said Ilia told him the woman had said she was just trying to learn the business, not spy on anyone, and Ilia refused to fifire her, instead paying her salary out of his own pocket. Renny alleged he later learned the woman was “in an inappropriate relationship” with Ilia and that Ilia had paid her to spy on Renny.
Lawyers for the Mogilevskys responded that Renny had no expectation of privacy in the offiffice.
Renny has had his own legal troubles. In addition to business- related lawsuits and traffic tickets, court records show he was arrested in 2012 and charged with aggravated stalking and violating adomestic-violence injunction. Records show both charges were reduced to misdemeanors. The stalking charge was dropped. In the violation of injunction, adjudication was withheld in exchange for Renny being sentenced to one year of probation.
According to Renny’s lawsuit, whenhe partnered with Ilia Mogilevsky in 2009, he was embroiled in another lawsuit and recently had fifi led for bankruptcy protection.
Renny said Ilia warned his bad credit rating would drag down the partnership. He cont ended Ilia persuaded him to leave his name off everything and setup a corporation in the name of Natalia and her mother, even though they would have no role in the partnership. The mother, in fact lives most of the time in Irkutsk, in southeastern Siberia, Renny’s suit said.
It said Ilia told Renny that Natalia’s mother could be used to take advantage of a lending program for foreign nationals.
“Ilia has repeatedly used his mother-in-law Tamara as a straw person to either hide Ilia’s involvement, protect Ilia from liability, or to hide assets from Ilia’s creditors,” the lawsuit said.
Court records show Ilia himself filed for federal Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in 2010. A 2012 settlement says he abandoned $1 million in assets, paid claimants $319,721 and discharged $1.75 million in claims.
Renny’s lawsuit said the partners bought and sold numerous properties between 2012 and 2014, especially targeting investors from Argentina.
It said Ilia also used the partnership to buy, renovate and decorate his Ballen Isles home, paying from his own pocket only the mortgage, taxes and insurance. County property records show the mother-in-law bought the home in December 2013 for $2.05million and transferred it in April 2014 for $13,325, via a quitclaim deed, to a partnership of herself and Natalia.
Renny’s suit claimed said that in the fall of 2015, the two planned to end their partnership, and Ilia presented “shama ccounting” to showa net loss, even though records showedm ost of the 500-plus transactions were done at a profifit.
The suit was settled in November2016. Neither side admitted fault. The Mogilevskys kept two properties, relinquished a third and paid Renny $754,000. Tama Beth Kudman, one of the Mogilevsky lawyers in the Renny lawsuit, declined to comment. Attorneys for Renny did not return a call. Neither did Natalia’s lawyer in the divorce filing.
This year, Ilia created a holding company called Trump Real Estate Investments LL C to buy, for $1.1 million, a three-bedroom condominium on the 12 th fl floor of an oceanfront complex in Sunny Isles Beach, just north of Miami Beach, Palm Beach attorney Les Evans confifirmed. He handled the transaction for Mogilevsky.
The condo is called Trump Tower III. Evans saida developer several years ago paid Trump a licensing fee for naming rights.