Billionaire Millennium Management Chairman Israel “Izzy” Englander’s wife Caryl withdrew an explosive suit accusing him of pressuring and coercing her into giving up most of her share of their wealth, just a day after filing it.
The suit in New York state court was discontinued Friday “in an effort to resolve this as a family matter” before a matrimonial court, a spokesperson for Caryl Englander said. Matrimonial cases in New York are mostly confidential.
A spokesperson for Izzy Englander didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The couple have been married since 1975 and have three adult children.
In the suit filed Thursday, Caryl Englander and her girlfriend, Swiss art dealer Dominique Levy, claimed Izzy Englander conducted a “yearslong campaign of pressure and coercion” that led her to sign a post-nuptial agreement under duress in 2020. She said the deal cut her off from billions of dollars in shared marital assets.
Izzy Englander, 74, has a net worth of $11.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Caryl Englander said in her suit that she and her husband grew apart by 2016, and she fell in love with Levy. Izzy Englander responded by outing his wife’s relationship with Levy to their children, hiring private investigators to surveil the couple and deploying “his near-limitless wealth to launch an all-out campaign of duress,” according to the suit.
Caryl Englander claimed she was “so traumatized and so desperate for Israel’s intimidation of her and Dominique to stop” that she acquiesced to the post-nuptial agreement.
“Israel accomplished what he had set out to achieve: he secured for himself nearly all of the couple’s wealth — more than 95% of the value of their marital assets, and near total control over the few assets and funds available to Caryl — all while punishing Caryl for her relationship with Dominique, terrorizing Dominique and her family, and harming Dominique’s business and livelihood in the process,” Caryl Englander said in her suit.
The case is Englander v. Englander, New York State Supreme Court, 151302/2023, New York County (Manhattan.)
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