Libbie Mugrabi is still living in the Hamptons mansion she lost in a court-ordered foreclosure auction last month, even as her lawyer asks a Suffolk County appellate court to invalidate the sale. Mugrabi, who had already been told to leave under a settlement, said she has not set a time to go.
She told The Post from inside the 10,687-square-foot Bridgehampton mansion, on 6.8 acres, that she does not know what will happen next. The dispute now turns on whether the court will step in before the buyer can take possession, because the auction has already been completed and Mugrabi is still in the home.
The fight has been building for more than two years around a $3.5 million loan secured by the property. Mugrabi got the house in 2020 as part of her divorce settlement from David Mugrabi, and later tried to keep it through a sale that began at $25 million before being cut to $19 million after two price cuts. The spring settlement gave her 90 days, until Aug. 25, to sell the home through a traditional listing or give up all rights to it.
Claude Castro filed the new action in the appellate court after Mugrabi and Castro told the court they had lined up a lender willing to make a rescue loan. Mugrabi said she would use a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting appraised at $40 million as collateral, and she recently won the artwork back in a separate legal battle. But Mugrabi has now parted ways with Castro and wrote in a handwritten note that she wants to handle the situation herself from this point henceforth.
That shift leaves her trying to press ahead while the other side says the case is effectively over. Maria Beltrani said Mugrabi did not sell the home and consented to eviction in the settlement, meaning she gave up virtually all of her rights to appeal. On Sept. 11, the lender’s law firm, acting for REO Assets of America in Great Neck, N.Y., responded to Mugrabi’s motion to stop the sale and give her more time to pay off the loan.
Her mother, Jane Scher, said she wants this all over so her daughter can make a fresh start as the artist she truly is. Mugrabi also told The Post she received $100 million in cash and other assets in the divorce settlement, though that figure has not been verified. The next move now belongs to the Suffolk County appellate court, and the unanswered question is whether it will undo a completed auction while Mugrabi remains in the mansion she says she is not ready to leave.
