The state attorney's office on Monday shot down tabloid-fueled talk that Wall Street wunderkind Seth Tobias was drugged by his wife and left to die in the swimming pool of their Jupiter home."Based on the evidence available at this time, including the autopsy and toxicology reports, there is no indication of criminality in the death of Mr. Tobias," Assistant State Attorney Mary Ann Duggan wrote in a letter to Jupiter police.
The drowning death of hedge fund guru Seth Tobias is entering the supernatural realm. Tobias' former employee, Bill Ash, now alleges that Tobias' widow, Filomena, hired a voodoo priestess to put a spell on Seth before his death.
"[Filomena] believed in dark rituals and would put curses on people that she didn't like," claims Ash, who has asserted that Filomena plotted to kill her wealthy 41-year-old husband because he was going to divorce her.
Ash contends that Filomena spent "over $100,000" on a woman he identified as Madam Simbi M'Arue, also known as "Mama." Besides casting curses, Ash says Filomena asked Mama to "remove evil from [the Tobias] homes and bring more money and sex to [Filomena]."According to Ash, Mama told him Filomena had paid her $18,000 "to put a curse on me recently so I would die before [I was able to testify against Filomena]."We couldn't reach the alleged spell-caster, whom Ash says "is afraid to come forward."Filomena's attorney (and ex-husband) Jay Jacknin declined to comment on the curse-casting claim, which he branded "nonsense."
Jacknin vigorously denounced Ash's allegation that Filomena admitted to Ash that she'd drugged Seth by putting sleeping pills into his pasta, then lured him into the pool of their Jupiter, Fla., home with the promise he could have "kinky sex" with a male stripper named Tiger. Jacknin maintains his client had nothing to do with Seth's death.On Tuesday, a Palm Beach County judge denied a motion by Filomena's legal team to block Ash from testifying in next month's probate hearings into Seth's estate.Tobias' brothers have tried to get Ash to testify under oath that Filomena hastened Seth's death so that they could prevent her from claiming his $25 million fortune. Ash's attorney, Debra Opri, says, "Seth Tobias' money has never been my client's motivation," but promised Ash would testify as soon as a final toxicology report is in. "That's nonsense," counters Jacknin. "What is he waiting for - to fit his story to the report?" Jacknin contends that attorneys for Filomena and the brothers have tried repeatedly to depose Ash "so he won't come into court at the last minute to make more outrageous statements. I want to prove him to be a liar."
Ash denied claims that he'd been looking for money from the brothers or the tabloid media. He did claim Filomena offered him $100,000 not to testify - and that she sent him a $15,000 Franck Muller watch, which Opri is keeping as evidence.
"It's a total lie," says Jacknin, who also denies Ash's claim that the attorney sought to coach his testimony.
Duggan's one-sentence wrap-up of the investigation stands in stark contrast to the volumes that have been written and said by celebrity gossip columnists, bloggers, society watchers and reporters worldwide.Since Tobias was found floating facedown in the swimming pool of the home he shared with his wife, Filomena, reports of the circumstances surrounding his death and the state of his marriage have made print and broadcast news from London to Los Angeles to Australia. Tales of drug use, kinky sex and marital discord propelled a family fight for the hedge fund manager's millions to the world's newspapers and television screens.Gary Dunkel, an attorney who represents Tobias' widow in the probate battle, said the saga is regrettable.
Tobias was known as a shrewd self-made millionaire who dispensed financial advice on CNBC's Squawk Box.Now, as a result of stories that surfaced as part of the family fight, he's known as a cocaine-loving party boy who got his kicks watching male strippers and engaging in gay sex."It's sad," Dunkel said. "His brothers seem intent on dragging their brother, Seth Tobias, through the mud."
The stage for the fight was set, in a large part, because the man who dispensed financial advice did little of his own financial planning. He didn't have a pre- or postnuptial agreement with Filomena and didn't update his will after he married her in March 2005.Under Florida law, that meant the will he signed in 2004, giving each of his four brothers 15 percent and each of his parents 10 percent of his estimated $25 million estate, was null and void. Instead, Filomena, 41, would get it all.
Shortly after his Sept. 4 death, his half brothers Sam and Spence Tobias went to court, claiming Filomena, known as Phyllis, shouldn't get a dime under the state's "slayer statute." The law prohibits someone from inheriting money from someone he or she killed.They then filled the court file with allegations from Billy Ash, who told them and any reporter who would listen that Filomena confessed to him that she fed her husband a combination of cocaine and sleeping pills to kill him. He further said she told him she enticed Tobias into the pool at their $3 million home in the exclusive Bear's Club by promising him sex with a male stripper known as Tiger.With a felony record and arrests in Florida on a variety of charges, including prostitution and writing bad checks, Ash wasn't the best source of information.
After traveling to California to interview him, police concluded as much."He's been completely discredited," said Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the state attorney's office.Though the medical examiner found Tobias had cocaine, alcohol, caffeine and Ambien, a prescription sleeping aid, in his system when he died, Edmondson said that doesn't mean someone drugged him."People die all the time with alcohol and drugs in their system," he said.
Before they began the war with Filomena, the brothers suggested her husband died from a heart attack. However, the medical examiner ruled he drowned, Edmondson said.
James Pressly, who represents the brothers, didn't return a call for comment.
In addition to Ash's statements, in court papers he has raised questions about what he said were conflicting stories Filomena gave about her husband's death. He also filed the transcript of vicious obscenity-laced text messages she sent her husband in March 2006.
"Drop dead and rot in hell," she wrote in one exchange.
That was the month Seth Tobias filed for divorce, saying he was fed up with her insatiable spending habits. She countered that she had caught him in an affair and was sick of his insatiable appetite for drugs. Ultimately, they reconciled.
However, Pressly claimed in court papers, in the weeks before his death Seth told Filomena they were through. He told close friends that he was afraid of his thrice-divorced wife because she often erupted in violence. In February 2006, she was arrested outside Cucina restaurant in Palm Beach after slapping him across the face. Days later, the domestic battery charge was dropped.All of that ugly history, however, doesn't make any difference now, Dunkel said.As part of the probate fight, Pressly has conducted a probe parallel to the police's.However, Dunkel said, unless Filomena Tobias is charged with a crime in connection with her husband's death, there is little chance the brothers can win the probate fight."I've never seen a case where someone maintained a slayer statute case when the person wasn't at least arrested," he said.
Still, he acknowledged, it's not over yet.
"They have a civil case," he said. "Until they drop it, I guess it's still going on."
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