Billionaire arrested throughout bitter household feud over ‘world-class’ artwork assortment harking back to HBO hit ‘Succession’

It was three days earlier than Christmas when cops arrived to arrest getting older billionaire Hubert Neumann at his NYC townhouse.

His personal son-in-law had known as the cops on him amid an enormous household feud over their astonishing artwork assortment. 

Hubert, now 91, was hauled away on December 22, 2018, at age 86, after Jeffrey Donnelly, married to his daughter Belinda, accused him of a ‘shoulder shove’.

He spent the night time sleeping on the freezing chilly ground of a police cell, surrounded by vermin.

Talking concerning the second he was put right into a cell with two different males, Hubert, who was 86 on the time, advised The Submit: “These guys mentioned, ‘Hey man, what are you doing right here?’ As a result of they mentioned I used to be an outdated man. I mentioned, ‘My household put me in jail.’ They mentioned, ‘What sort of household you bought, man?’”

Greater than 4 years later, the battle has solely acquired worse. 

It’s so harking back to HBO hit ‘Succession’, that Hubert’s youngest daughter Melissa Neumann, who stays near her dad, admitted: “I needed to cease watching it because it hit too near house.”

Neumman, a Chicago mail-order cosmetics inheritor, has a group of artwork starting from Picasso, Miró, and Matisse to Warhol and Koons, which he started gathering 50 years in the past along with his late father Morton.

Neumman was and is prolific, befriending artists together with Basquiat earlier than they discovered fame, nonetheless shopping for up-and-coming artists, and constructing a group that he sees as his legacy. 

However he’s embroiled in a authorized combat over the way forward for the art work, introduced by Belinda, the second of his three daughters.

She is making an attempt to get him thrown out of two trusts he oversees.

Hubert fears that if she succeeds, she might promote most or all of the artwork collected over 5 a long time.

In 2021, The Post revealed the family was fighting over a George Herms sculpture – after beforehand falling out over Basquiats.

Now we will reveal the complete ugly extent of the battle, with Hubert’s arrest being matched by accusations that he was a wife-beater.

This was alleged throughout a court docket combat over Hubert’s ex-wife Dolores’ will. Neumann claimed it was secretly modified earlier than her demise to provide Belinda 80 p.c of the property, and the opposite two daughters the remaining 20 p.c.

A court docket just lately dominated that Dolores was in sound thoughts when she made the modification. 

With a slew of ongoing court docket circumstances concerning the two trusts that Hubert oversees, a spokesperson for Belinda and Jeffrey advised The Submit: “Hubert’s bodily abuse of Dolores is only one factor of his 40-plus years of fraud and criminality which, as alleged and will likely be confirmed in ongoing litigations.”

Neumann has denied all allegations of wife-beating; the claims haven’t been dominated on by a court docket.

The spokesperson for the Donnellys highlighted a head-spinning slew of allegations made in court docket.

They embody that Neumann “fraudulently altered” a co-op inventory certificates to steal Dolores’s 50 p.c possession of a jointly-owned condominium, “falsely claiming” that he’s the only proprietor of greater than $100 million of artwork “which he the truth is co-owned with Dolores and/or his daughters”, “fraudulently siphoning” off thousands and thousands of {dollars} from his daughters’ trusts to pay 50 p.c of his and his girlfriend’s lavish life-style…” and stealing Belinda’s inventory in a household company which owns a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} value of artwork.”

In response, Jay Itkowitz, lawyer for Hubert, mentioned the Donnellys have been “throwing dust”, including: “The topic right here is why daughter Belinda and her husband Jeffrey Donnelly would trigger an 86-year outdated father and grandfather to be arrested a few days earlier than Christmas 2018 due to an alleged ‘shoulder examine’ by Hubert Neumann, as acknowledged on Jeffrey Donnelly’s police report. Because of this, Mr. Neumann was stored in a single day, and he needed to sleep on a concrete ground for his personal security in an NYC jail.”

Hubert mentioned Belinda, 56, her husband Jeffrey, 55, and their three youngsters moved into Hubert’s house again in September 2012, ostensibly to take care of him in his outdated age – and paid no hire.

To this, they declare he requested them to maneuver in.

However he fell out with Belinda when he requested her to share her mom’s property equally along with her sisters.

Hubert began eviction proceedings towards the Donnellys in Could 2018.

They have been set to be thrown out that very same month, however two days earlier than the eviction date, Belinda and Jeffrey acquired a short lived order of safety (TOP) towards him in household court docket, accusing him of threatening them with bodily hurt.

In addition they sued Hubert within the supreme court docket for monetary damages, in search of to stay in the home.

And this was simply the beginning.

On Could 25, 2018, the Donnellys known as the police, claiming that Hubert had violated the order.

The police visited, and questioned Hubert, however no arrest was made.

On Could 29, 2018, Belinda and Jeffrey’s lawyer filed a second restraining order, requiring Hubert and his live-in associate Debra Purden, a author and curator, to remain solely on the fourth and fifth flooring of the home, and lock elevator doorways to the second and third flooring, which stored him from having access to his artwork assortment and useful paperwork. (The household court docket later required the locks to be faraway from these two doorways for security causes).

The Donellys additionally known as the police on Hubert on two extra events, on June 11 and September 21, 2018, claiming Hubert violated the TOP.

However issues actually escalated on December 22, 2018, when Jeffrey known as 911 — in a name heard by The Submit — and claimed Hubert had shoved him.

Later, in his hand-written police report the night time of the arrest, Jeffrey mentioned: “[Hubert] was passing [Jeffrey] on the staircase and shoulder checked [Jeffrey] into the door inflicting [Jeffrey] to worry for the security of his household.”

Recalling the day, Hubert mentioned he arrived house to see Jeffrey sitting amid bins within the entry corridor to the home. 

Hubert walked previous Jeffrey on the steps and peeked into the eating room on the second ground.

Jeffrey then allegedly slammed the doorways earlier than Hubert might see into the room.

This was caught by a video digital camera that Jeffrey had arrange with out Hubert’s data.

On the tape, obtained by The Submit from public information, Hubert is heard saying “You pushed me.”

Hubert then went as much as his bed room on the fifth ground, the place at 6 pm, police knocked on his door. 

“The police mentioned, ‘Will you please costume up as a result of it’s chilly’, and so I needed to change and placed on a coat and hat. Mainly, I acquired the impression that the police have been reluctant to arrest me. So that they put handcuffs on me, for the primary time in my life, and it damage — it damage.

“I walked previous Jeffrey who was sitting there, no expression on his face as he checked out me in handcuffs, and I walked right into a paddy wagon. I couldn’t even imagine it was taking place.”

It was then that cops advised him he had violated the safety order.

Hubert was taken to a precinct close to his house the place he mentioned he was “freezing chilly and disoriented.”

“You lose all of your sense of privateness,” he mentioned: “So I say, ‘I’ve to go to the lavatory’, I get walked out, and the man’s me going to the lavatory. And it’s humiliating.

“I used to be frightened. I heard scratching that I feared was rats. I heard screaming from inmates in different cells. I used to be very frightened.

“You say how do I really feel? I really feel I’ve misplaced my privateness. I can’t even imagine it.” He was fingerprinted and interviewed, “then I had to fall asleep, and there’s a chrome steel bench. I mentioned, ‘I’m not sleeping on that, I’ll fall off and break a hip or one thing’. So I lay down on the ground. A cement, chilly ground.

“It took me a very long time to get to sleep, lastly there’s a cop within the cell and he faucets me. and says, “I’m simply checking you’re nonetheless alive’.”

Debra and Melissa quickly arrived on the precinct with pizza and a dressing robe for Hubert however have been banned from seeing him.

Melissa, a famous artwork collector herself, mentioned: “I used to be simply apprehensive for his security.”

He burst into tears when he finally noticed Melissa and Debra the subsequent morning on the felony court docket downtown after he was booked.

However, on February 6, 2019, Jeffrey withdrew his household court docket grievance with out giving Hubert the prospect to current proof that the case was false, and on July 15, 2019, the Manhattan DA’s workplace introduced they’d not prosecute and the matter was dismissed.

Hubert allowed the matter to be unsealed.

In April 2019 the NY Appellate division denied the Donnellys’ bid to enchantment the eviction, and so they have been ordered to maneuver out by Could 15, 2019, and pay again $24,282.57 in hire. 

They now reside in midtown.

For Hubert, the damage stays.

After his arrest, he was delayed twice by customs whereas coming again into the nation as his document was nonetheless tagged along with his arrest.

But he repeatedly advised The Submit: “I nonetheless love my three daughters, together with Belinda. I simply need peace and love in my household.”

Melissa, who is ready to take over as a trustee within the occasion of her dad’s demise, mentioned: “In my capability as a trustee I need to be goal as I can, on a private degree I believe it’s going to be very onerous to restore a household like this.

“This all didn’t need to occur this manner, the studying of my mom’s will certainly modified my life trajectory and my sister’s trajectory. 

“She is my older sister and had at all times been anyone I appeared as much as and we helped one another, the non-public half is what I believe hurts essentially the most for me.”