Assistant Swindled Elderly Art Collectors Out of $2M: Lawsuit

Esteemed art collectors Raphael and Jane Bernstein were allegedly swindled out of millions of dollars by an opportunistic personal assistant, according to a new lawsuit.

The Bernsteins, 92 and 87, respectively, are prominent patrons of the arts whose collection has been shown in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, and the Hood Museum at Dartmouth. A biography on the Hood Museum website describes them as “elite art collectors” who have “dedicated much of their lives to searching and researching, conserving and sharing, and acquiring and giving away spectacular examples of the many art worlds they find interesting.”

The pair currently live in Ridgewood, New Jersey, where they invest “significant funds” and maintain “high checking account balances,” according to a lawsuit they filed in New York Supreme Court this week. According to a criminal complaint filed earlier this year, they hired a part-time assistant—who also worked part-time at the local library—in 2018 to help manage their bills, banking, email and “other computer/technology-related issues.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.