A billionaire was slapped with 19 lawsuits, arrested and evicted from his New York mansion while fighting with his daughter over his $1 billion art collection.
Hubert Neumann, 92, was evicted from his $6 million Upper West Side townhouse after the bitter dispute with Belinda and her husband Jeffrey Donnelly.
Donnelly had alleged that the aging art collector exhibited aggressive behavior when he tried to evict the couple from the home where they had been staying.
Security footage showed him sitting and watching as police officers quietly removed the billionaire from his mansion during his arrest three days before Christmas 2018.
Belinda, the second of his three daughters, and her husband Donnelly had launched a campaign against her father when he opposed her claim to 80 percent of her late mother’s estate.
Neumann’s wife, Dolores, signed a will before her death in 2016, leaving most of her estate to Belinda and disinheriting her husband.
92-year-old art collector and billionaire Hubert Neumann is embroiled in a complicated legal battle instigated by his own daughter and son-in-law that led to his arrest
Hubert Neumann, 92, was hit with a restraining order that restricted Neumann to the upper floors of his home
In May 2018, a temporary restraining order was filed restricting Neumann and his partner Debra Purden to the fourth and fifth floors of his New York City Upper West Side townhouse
Neumann has long disputed the will, which he says is invalid because it was executed while his wife was undergoing serious medical treatment.
Neumann claimed that the will was secretly changed before her death to give Belinda 80 percent of the estate and the remaining 20 percent to her two other daughters, Melissa and Debra.
Neumann essentially fell out with Belinda when he asked her to share her mother’s estate equally with her sisters. He then initiated eviction proceedings against the Donnellys in May 2018.
Neumann’s legal team claims his daughter wanted to take possession of the collection, including a major artwork by Andy Warhol, in order to sell it. Neumann, on the other hand, insists on keeping the work of art as a family heirloom.
But although the legal matter is still unresolved, Neumann insists that he loves his daughter – despite all the turmoil.
“I love Belinda and my two daughters equally, as I always have,” he told The Sun. “I hope and pray that we can put this family dispute behind us and restore peace and love to our family.”
In 2018, just days before Christmas, things began to unfold when Neumann’s son-in-law, Jeffrey Donnelly, contacted police to report an altercation at Neumann’s New York City townhouse.
Neumann and his daughter Belinda are seen publicly together in a Picasso exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC in February 2011
Basquiat’s “Untitled (Tyranny”), a 64-by-96-inch acrylic and oil stick on canvas from 1982, is considered the group’s crown jewel
Basquiat’s Hall of Fame painting is another sought-after work
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s painting Flesh and Spirit, once owned by the Neumann family. Divided into quadrants, the work contains elements of a skeleton, a brain and a disembodied hand, as well as words such as “potato” and “peso” as well as “flesh” and “spirit”.
He accused Neumann, then 86, of pushing him and violating a restraining order that restricted Neumann to the upper floors of his home.
According to The Sun, in his 911 call, Donnelly described the incident as an “aggressive situation.”
Surveillance footage captured the moment Neumann was handcuffed and led out by police officers as Donnelly sat and watched from the stairs.
Neumann slept one night on the freezing floor of a police cell, surrounded by vermin, while his daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren continued to live rent-free in his townhouse, which also housed his entire art collection.
The following year, Neumann’s legal team appeared in family court to find that Donnelly’s lawyers had withdrawn their claims.
The prosecutor’s office declined to prosecute the case, resulting in the dismissal of the case and denying Neumann the opportunity to clear his name.
It would be the beginning of a lengthy legal dispute that had continued to unfold in recent years.
Neumann sits in front of Roy Lichtenstein’s “Live Ammo (Take Cover!)”
More paintings from Neumann’s coveted collection
Two paintings by the French painter Gaston Chaissac decorate the walls of Neumann’s town house
The interior of Neumann’s townhouse is more like an art museum
Neumann came to New York City in the early 1950s when he was in his early twenties. He was immediately fascinated by the lively art scene.
Along with his late father Morton, he became a prolific art collector and even played a role in discovering famous abstract artists such as Jean Michel Basquiat.
Brooklyn-born Basquiat rose to fame as a graffiti artist in the late 1970s. Dolores Neumann became friends with Basquiat during his brief career, which ended with his death in 1988.
Neumann’s father, Morton, a Chicagoan who made a fortune in the mail order business, founded a collection that eventually became one of the finest in the United States, including works by Picasso, Picabia and Warhol. He died in 1985.
The art was divided between sons Arthur and Hubert.
Most of these works of art, valued at more than a billion dollars, are now owned by two family foundations, both headed by Hubert Neumann.
Neumann’s coveted collection includes renowned artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Warhol, Koons and Miró and is sought after by wealthy collectors and museums worldwide.
Neumann wanted to preserve the entire collection and pass it on to his daughters.
In 2012, his daughter Belinda, along with her husband and children, moved in with Neumann to look after him. But tensions rose when it was revealed that Belinda would inherit 80 percent of her late mother’s estate.
Several paintings by the Catalan artist and sculptor Joan Miró
Virtually no part of the wall is left uncovered; the walls are decorated with works of art everywhere
A painting by Jean Dubuffet entitled Antonin Artaud aux Houppes
Another painting by Jean Dubuffet can be seen on the walls
Neumann Hubert (right) is seen with his other daughter Melissa (left), pictured in 2008
Neumann never consented to the will, which he believed was altered and enforced, despite a court ruling confirming his ex-wife’s sane state of mind.
After her mother’s death, Belinda received a Basquiat painting, which she immediately sold for $30.7 million against her father’s wishes.
She claimed in court papers that her father’s will was removed from her mother’s will because of alleged abuse, a claim Neumann vehemently denies.
Tensions escalated in May 2018 when Neumann attempted to evict the Donnellys from his home.
In response, Belinda and her husband obtained a temporary protective order prohibiting all communication between Neumann and the Donnellys, even though they all lived in the same house.
In late May 2018, another temporary restraining order was filed restricting Neumann and his partner Debra Purden to the fourth and fifth floors of the townhouse while locking the doors on the second and third floors.
This led to several 911 calls from the Donnellys claiming that Neumann had violated the order.
The drama continued until May 2019, when the Donnellys were finally evicted and ordered to pay $24,300 in rent following a ruling by the New York Appellate Division.
In 2021, Belinda alleged that her father “continues to use his father’s money and fraud as a means of controlling his children and, more importantly to him, any works of art belonging to any member of the Neumann family,” according to court papers.
She claimed he withheld money left to them in family trusts from his own children and grandchildren and “made it as difficult as possible for his children to disobey him.”
The legal battles continue as Belinda and her husband attempt to challenge Neumann’s control over her mother’s will.
They argue that years of alleged abuse make Neumann unfit to fulfill his duties as a trustee.
Neumann’s lawyers insist that these claims will be tested in court because they believe the billionaire can prove the claims are false.
“The obvious reason was clear. The Donnellys had taken full advantage of the fictitious claims. “They kept Hubert locked up in his own home for months without a hearing,” said Neumann’s attorney, Jay Itkowitz.
“After the false claims had been circulating for months, they simply dropped the claims as they no longer had any use and in my opinion would have been dismissed anyway.”
“To avoid the embarrassment of a loss in family court, they simply withdrew the claims.”
Melissa Neumann, Hubert’s youngest daughter, will become the trustee in the event of her father’s death.
“In my capacity as a trustee, I want to be as objective as possible. On a personal level, I think it will be very difficult to recreate a family like that,” she told the New York Post earlier this year.
“It didn’t have to happen like this, the reading of my mother’s will definitely changed the path of my life and that of my sister.”
“She is my older sister and has always been someone I looked up to and we helped each other. The personal part is what I think hurts me the most.”