Exclusive | Libbie Mugrabi refuses to leave the $25M Hamptons mansion she lost in a humiliating public auction
Heck no, she won’t go.Libbie Mugrabi is staying put in the Hamptons mansion she lost in a court-ordered foreclosure auction last month.As the one-time socialite digs in her heels, the attorney who repped her throughout the lengthy battle to keep the property has filed an action in a Suffolk County appellate court to invalidate the auction, which the court has not yet acted upon. Mugrabi and the attorney, Claude Castro of Castro Law Group, told the court they have lined up a lender willing to provide a loan that would save the home and allow her to stay.Mugrabi would use as collateral a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting that is appraised at $40 million.
She recently won the artwork back in a separate legal battle. It isn’t clear, however, whether Castro will pursue the matter because Mugrabi has now parted ways with him, according to court documents.In a handwritten note to the court, with hearts over each “i” in her name, Mugrabi said that she wants to handle situation herself from this point henceforth. This marks the latest twist in a lengthy melee that has papered the court with thousands of pages of legal claims.
Over the past two years, Mugrabi has tried to convince the court she should be allowed to keep the home despite defaulting — by admittedly not paying anything — on a $3.5 million loan that used it as collateral.Mugrabi got the 10,687-square-foot Bridgehampton mansion and its surrounding 6.8 acres as part of an equally fraught settlement in her divorce from the billionaire art collector David Mugrabi — an heir to an Israeli industrial fortune — in 2020.Mugrabi previously told The Post she received $100 million in cash and other assets from the settlement, although the figure has not been verified. Mugrabi, speaking from the home, told The Post she has not set a time to leave the property.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. Her mother, Jane Scher, said she “Wants this all over,” so her daughter can, “make a...