UES Socialite Stiffed Minimum Wage Staff, Attacked Maid: Lawsuits

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A millionaire Upper East Side socialite isn't quite so popular with workers, state officials or the landlords who've taken legal action demanding cash for unpaid wages, post-attack damages and rent, court records show.

Libbie Mugrabi, the 43-year-old ex of a billionaire art collector and hat designer, failed to pay staff nearly $18,000 in wages and her Upper East Side landlord $90,000 in rent, according to complaints filed in New York City's civil court.

Another worker suing Mugrabi for damages to be determined by the court contends the socialite physically attacked her in the Hamptons.

Representatives for Mugrabi and the worker did not reply to requests for comment.

While the lawsuit lacks details, the New York Post reported last year Mugrabi had been arrested for menacing a maid with a knife and a mop in her Sag Harbor estate.

Violence erupted after the worker demanded money she was owed by the glamorous divorcée, police told the Post.

The state's Commissioner of Labor has also demanded Mugrabi cough up cash she owes her workers, court records show.

Specifically, they'd like Mugrabi to pay $59,000 in wages, interest and damages after failing to pay minimum wages to a member of her household staff as well as back pay to the worker and an assistant.

The figure is less than a third of the $200,000 Mugrabi told the New York Times in 2019 she spends every month.

Unless Mugrabi files an appeal, she must make her payment by September 15, the order states.

Mugrabi has additionally been sued by two different Upper East Side landlords claiming that the socialite, who enjoyed an annual spending budget of $3 million back in her days of matrimony, is skimping on her bills.

The owner of an East 82nd Street condo claimed a shocking $1.8 million in rental arrears against Mugrabi in 2021.

In April, a judge ordered her to pay up, but she is appealing the decision, according to court records.

And another landlord claims two months rent — $90,000 — was overdue at an East 67th Street townhouse in June. Her lawyer claims she has since paid in full, according to court documents.

Mugrabi was once married to prominent art collector and billionaire financier David Mugrabi, whose family owns a $5 billion art collection, including one of the largest private collections of works by Andy Warhol, and occupies what one art critic described to the Times as "the most opaque" corner of the art market.

Also notable among their assets was a $15 million Upper East Side townhouse, also on East 82nd Street, that the pair sunk $57 million in during renovations.

The couple's split — after 14 years and the birth of two children — rocked Manhattan's elite social scene, and was called the city's "nastiest" divorce by the New York Post.

The pair went after each other's assets — including claimed scenes of wrestling over a $500,000 Keith Haring statue — as their marriage contained no prenuptial agreement.

The Post reported that Mugrabi sought $100 million in a settlement.

Mugrabi recently claimed her ex asked for help in finding a hitman to "kill her," according to the New York Post.

She posed for photos outside of Manhattan Family Court wearing a bulletproof vest over a sheer Tom Ford dress with the backdrop of June's famously orange wildfire smoke-filled sky as she sought an order of protection from a judge.

Her ex told the Post that her claims were "the most ridiculous story I ever heard."