Nobel Prize-winning Canadian economist Robert Mundell, also known as the “father of the euro,” died without a will in his palatial home in Italy in 2021. Now his heirs are fighting over the villa and what they believe is a multi-million dollar asset. He was illegally conscripted by his second wife, who became his widow.
Plaintiffs William, Robin, Alexander and Lily Mandel are accusing Valerie Natchios-Mandel, Robert Mandel’s wife, of fraud and other wrongdoing, according to a lawsuit filed Friday in New York Supreme Court. They are seeking punitive damages and attorney’s fees in addition to their alleged share of the estate.
“It’s so beautiful,” Robin Mandel told The Daily Beast about the villa. “We grew up there and spent every summer there. [there] With our children. She added that her father hosted a conference at her home “every summer with famous economists like John Nash.”
Robert Mandel had three children with his first wife: William, Robin, and Paul, who died in a car accident in 2018. Two of Paul’s four children, Alexander and Lily, joined the lawsuit. Paul’s third child Alice died in 2023, but his youngest child Lucy is not a party to the lawsuit.
Natsios-Mandel, who married an economist in 1998, lives in Italy and is not a U.S. citizen.
According to the complaint, Robert Mandel spent part of his career on the faculty at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, and Johns Hopkins. After his death, retirement accounts at these institutions were valued at a combined total of more than $4 million and were maintained by an outside entity known as TIAA. According to the lawsuit, Natchios Mandel claims 100 percent of these funds are his.
A large part of the dispute is that Robert Mundell suffered a “massive stroke” that left him severely impaired in his ability to “understand or construct language” and to communicate in writing, leaving him with limited “insight and awareness.” The plaintiffs allege that the incidents date back to 2013. .
Ms. Mandel received treatment in New York and returned to Italy in 2014, where Ms. Natsios-Mandel became her sole caregiver and said, “Mr. Mandel provided everything he needed in his best interests and took care of his “I relied on him to carry out my intentions,” the complaint states.
Mandel, who was functioning in a state of diminished mental capacity after a stroke, “expressed to the best of his ability his desire to divide all his assets into five parts,” the suit states. William, Robin, Paul and Natchios-Mandel will each receive a share, as will Mandel and Natchios-Mandel’s only child, Nicholas.
But the lawsuit alleges that Natchios-Mandel demanded large sums of money. She is said to have been named the sole beneficiary of Mr Mandel’s retirement accounts in January 2014, before he returned to Italy.
The changes were made online even though Mandel “didn’t have access to or the ability to operate a computer or other electronic device,” according to the complaint.
Also that month, Natsios-Mandel tried to notarize Mandel’s signature on a power of attorney, but her husband told the notary he “couldn’t do that,” the suit says. [to] I can’t move or talk because of the stroke. ” The notary allegedly refused, telling his wife that “her license might be revoked.”
In 2019, Natchios-Mandel allegedly “executed a New York State short-form power of attorney appointing him as Dr. Mandel’s agent.” According to her complaint, this “allegedly gave” her the ability to make large gifts on Mandel’s behalf.
Before Mandel’s death, Natchios-Mandel allegedly “arranged” for approximately “$800,000 to be transferred from a Swiss bank account owned by Dr. Mandel” to an Italian account in her name.
Natchios Mandel could not be reached for comment, nor could Lily Mandel and William Mandel. Alexander Mandel declined to speak, while plaintiffs’ attorney Gary Krim declined to elaborate beyond the complaint.
The plaintiffs allege that Natsios Mandel has ignored Italian law and denied access to Mandel’s bank records.
The lawsuit also claims that Natsios-Mandel and Nicholas live in a 60,000-square-foot vacation home that “consists of four large buildings with separate entrances.” This property was featured in his 1992 edition of the magazine. architectural digest. “This was designed by Baldassare Peruzzi in the early 16th century for Pandolfo “The Magnificent” Petrucci,” Robert Mandel enthused to the outlet.
“Despite the size of the villa and its extensive grounds,” the complaint says, Naciosmandel does not give the defendants access to any property or financial records that may be located inside.
The plaintiffs claim they have already been forced to pay approximately $150,000 in “litigation costs and related expenses without receiving any portion of the assets owed to them.”