Howard Rubin accused of having committed BDSM crimes and sexual assault
As a high-earning money manager including for the Soros Fund Howard Rubin seemed to have it all.
There was the multi-million-dollar co-op on the Upper East
Side, as well as a $9 million waterfront estate in the Hamptons. Rubin and his
wife, Mary, were known for their generosity on the city’s philanthropy circuit;
from 2015 to 2016, the couple gave nearly $500,000 to charitable causes,
including the New York Junior League and Hope for a Cure.
But there was one other real-estate holding he kept hidden:
a luxurious Madison Avenue penthouse, outfitted with blow-up photos of Playboy
models and, apparently, all manner of BDSM paraphernalia.
It is in this secret sex dungeon that Rubin, now 66, is
accused of having committed violent acts and sexual assault against a number of
women, including actual Playboy playmates. A civil trial, with six of his seven
alleged victims seeking at least $18 million, is scheduled for November.
Among other misdeeds, Rubin has been accused of “beat[ing a
woman’s] breasts so badly that her right implant flipped” an injury so severe
that, according to court documents, her “plastic surgeon was not even willing
to operate on her breasts.”
He is alleged to have paid his partners as much as $5,000
for each BDSM session. But, the women claim, they did not agree to the degree
of abuse and degradation Rubin inflicted.
One of the plaintiffs claims that, while she was bound and
vulnerable in Rubin’s lair, he told her “I’m going to rape you like I rape my
daughter” and then, according to the complaint, forced sex on her against her
will. (Rubin has three children with his estranged wife, including at least one
daughter.)
Rubin’s lawyer had no comment.
The initial accusations against the disgraced financier were
made in November 2017, but his wife of 36 years, fellow Wall Streeter and
Harvard MBA Mary Henry, only filed for divorce on July 7.
“How much can a wife take?” said an executive who worked at
Merrill Lynch at the same time as Mary.
“I thought he was a nice guy. He was a nebbishy Jewish guy
and totally normal. I was surprised to hear about him having that apartment
[with a sex dungeon],” said a trader who worked with Rubin at Soros Fund
Management, created by billionaire investor George Soros.
And while Rubin’s colleagues may be shocked by his
over-the-top predilections, some say that “Howie,” as he was known on Wall
Street, could be out-of-control at the office, too.
“I saw him throw a chair on the trading floor,” one former
co-worker told The Post “He said, ‘F–k. I just lost $50 million!’ and threw a
chair at his computer. Then he came back and threw it a second time, even
harder. That sums up Howie: High strung, aggressive, does not hold back his
feelings. He was a trader whose ego was tied up in being the biggest swinging
dick on Wall Street.”
Howard Rubin grew up in Massachusetts, where his father did
analytical research for Polaroid in Cambridge. He attended Lafayette College
and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering. But after school, he
skipped the corporate world for a stint as a Vegas card counter. Over two
years, Rubin turned $3,000 into $80,000.
Then he scored an MBA from Harvard and focused on Wall
Street, where he began working for Salomon Brothers in 1983. As noted in
“Liar’s Poker” by Michael Lewis, Rubin thought that “the trading floor at
Salomon Brothers felt like a Las Vegas casino. You made your bets, handled
risk, in the midst of a thousand distractions.” He became famed as a
money-maker — earning $55 million for Salomon during his first two years.
While making his bones at Salomon, Rubin married financial
advisor Mary Henry in 1985. Rubin seemed like a typical, well-heeled
Manhattanite climbing the Wall Street ladder. A society photo captures the duo
swanning through a ritzy 2013 benefit at the Pierre Hotel.
A source who worked on the couple’s Hamptons property — one
blog praised the garden’s “Monet-like effect” — never saw Rubin’s rough side.
“They’re great people,” the source told The Post of Rubin and Mary. “I’ve known
them for 10-plus years. They have always been very honorable.”
Rubin’s high-flying life began to crash in November 2017.
That was when the first allegations were leveled against him by three Florida
women — Mia Lytell and Amy Moore, both described in the suit as Playboy Playmates,
along with Stephanie Caldwell, said to be a model and a dancer who worked at
the 24/7 Miami strip-club E11even.
They accuse Rubin of charges that include assault, battery
and human trafficking. “In short, they are each alleging that they were brought
to New York and taken advantage of,” the women’s attorney, John Balestriere,
told The Post. “Allegations come down to [the women] saying they were
physically and sexually abused.”
The suit alleges that Rubin got one woman “addicted to
drugs,” and paints an ugly picture of what went on between him and six S&M
partners. (Four more joined the lawsuit. Caldwell dropped out of the suit for
unexplained reasons, and another woman, Julie Parker, has launched a separate
suit against Rubin.)
The hired women allegedly wound up in Rubin’s dungeon, with its red walls and white carpet.
Sex toys were alphabetized and an X-shaped “St. Andrews cross” — a device on
which submissives are restrained, spread-eagle, at the wrists, ankles and waist
— took pride of place.
The initial lawsuit stated that while Lytell and Moore
believed that Rubin intended to play “some mild fetish games and perhaps take
photos, neither expected to be restrained in this manner [bound with rope and
tape and gagged] or to be actually beaten.”
According to a motion for summary judgment, filed by lawyer
Edward McDonald on behalf of Rubin, the
women signed strict non-disclosure agreements, with penalties of at
least $500,000 if broken, and acknowledgement that violent sex, with a risk of
injury, is what they were consenting to and being paid for.
The complaint alleges that the women were given little time
to review the agreements. “They did not have lawyers on call,” said
Balestriere.
In at least some instances, according to the lawsuit, when
the women “screamed or protested [during a session], Rubin would simply become
more violent.”
Lytell claims to have been beaten on the back of the head.
Because, according to court documents, “she was restrained” and “in and out of
consciousness, Lytell does not know if Rubin penetrated her with an object or
if it was Rubin himself.”
“Some of our clients say they were in no position to speak
or leave,” Balestriere told The Post.
Acknowledging that the women were all paid and that “nobody
is saying a gun was put to their heads to come to New York,” Balestriere added:
“Our clients are alleging that they were misled and lied to and were victims of
physical and sexual violence.”
Rubin is said to no longer rent the penthouse. “Some of the
[sexual implements] are in storage and some are thrown out,” a source told The
Post. “Howie saved some of the stuff” — according to a court document, items in
the dungeon included vaginal clamps and an electrical device with which “Rubin
repeatedly shocked [Amy] Moore” — “so he doesn’t get accused of disposing of
evidence.”
Rubin has denied the claims in the case. Rubin’s motion
states that he texted Lytell to confirm that she understood precisely what he
was into — and that it would hurt.
“Do u [know] what you are in for?” the text reads, according
to court papers. “It’s total BDSM. Most girls love it and come back for more.
But I just like to be up front about everything.”
In the motion, Rubin denies allegations of drugging. “He was
not supplying drugs to the girls — except possibly painkillers during the
encounters [which were painful],” an insider, who asked to remain anonymous,
told The Post. “If they had [other] drugs, they were provided by people other
than Howie.”
According to Rubin’s summary judgment motion, Emma Hopper,
an Atlanta model and student who received payment for participating in the
S&M sessions, texted an associate of Rubin’s as the lawsuits progressed. Hopper
allegedly wrote that she was “so worried about everyone” and asked, “Is this
all going to stop Howie from seeing us?”
A November 2017 text, included in Rubin’s motion as being
sent by Hopper to Rubin’s assistant, reads: “If y’all need me to do anything to
help like testify that we agreed to everything happening I will.”
Around this same time, Hopper asked Rubin to pay for a trip
to Los Angeles and for a car, according to the motion. He claims to have
refused. Hopper filed suit against him on Feb. 20, 2018. According to an
amended statement filed by Rubin’s lawyer, one day later Hopper “texted Rubin a
photo of herself in a schoolgirl outfit with her breasts exposed” and “‘I’m
your little school girl slut for life.’”
“[Hopper] successfully opposed Mr. Rubin’s attempt … to have her case thrown out,” Balestriere
said of the text.
In terms of the case against Rubin, Balestriere added, “None
of these women came to New York knowing that they would be physically and
sexually abused. They did not consent to what did end up happening. The key
factor is that Mr. Rubin said these individuals consented to the physical and
sexual violence perpetrated against them. Our six clients say they did not
consent … ”
A former executive at Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital
Markets, where Rubin worked from 1985 until 1987, said it’s not the first time
the disgraced financier has shown his shady side — noting that, while at
Merrill, Rubin made an unauthorized trade that resulted in a widely publicized
$250 million loss for the firm and led to him being fired. (He was then hired
by Bear Stearns.)
“[The dungeon] was just Howie being a lowlife — again,” he
said.
“I never knew about the sexual deviations,” the exec added.
After it came out “people were calling me and saying he’s a sleaze … but Howie
has no morals. While at Merrill Lynch, he was morally bankrupt.”
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