George McDonald and 232 East 84th St.
Mayoral candidate George McDonald and his wife, accused of taking out nearly $1.5 million in mortgage loans in her father’s name and then forcing him out of their Upper East Side brownstone, have quietly settled the court case, DNAinfo reported.
The focal point of the legal wrangle was a townhouse at 232 East 84th Street that McDonald and his father-in-law, Emanuel Karr, bought together in 1989. Karr put in $250,000 at the time, with McDonald contributing $30,000, according to a filing by Barbara Spector-Karr — Karr’s second wife — in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court, cited by DNAinfo.
Karr owned 89 percent of the brownstone under a partnership agreement, while McDonald and his wife, Harriet Karr-McDonald, held the remaining 11 percent.
Karr lived in the brownstone until his first wife died, but relocated when he remarried in 1995.
Karr died in 2011 from injuries suffered in a fall down the stairs in a new apartment. As the executor and beneficiary of his estate, Spector-Karr filed a petition in August 2012 accusing the McDonalds of wrongfully withholding funds from him.
Since her husband owned 89 percent of the brownstone, Spector-Karr argued, the McDonalds owed his estate $1.33 million, or 89 percent of the value of the loans.
The McDonalds called the claims frivolous and denied that Karr’s estate had any legal claim to money from the loan, in a legal filing cited by DNAinfo.
An attorney for Spector-Karr’s family declined to comment to DNAinfo. [DNAinfo] — Julie Strickland