A real estate company run by accused murderer Robert Durst’s second wife complains in a $10 million lawsuit that several anonymous websites linked to buildings the firm owns wrongly claim she’s “the most ruthless New York City real estate mogul of her generation.”
BCB Property Management Inc. and Novel Property Ventures, owned respectively by Debrah Lee Charatan and her son Bennat Charatan Berger, also complain the six websites are wrongly sliming them by publicizing untrue allegations about bed bug infestations and swastika graffiti.
The websites are named after the six buildings they correspond to, which are located in Williamsburg, Prospect Heights, and the East Village.
The websites went online in summer 2016, the suit states.
“The Defamatory Websites contain false statements concerning the Plaintiffs,” the suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court claims.
Durst is not directly involved in the firms, but it’s widely believed that Charatan used millions her husband received from his family’s real-estate empire to start BCB Property Management.
Durst, 72, is in Los Angeles on charges that he shot Berman after confiding to her that he’d killed his first wife, Kathleen Durst. Kathleen went missing in 1982. Her body has never been found and her husband remains the primary suspect in her disappearance.
Durst has also admitted to dismembering a Texas neighbor in 2000, but escaped conviction for the killing by claiming he accidentally shot the man then panicked.
Charatan and Berger’s real-estate companies own properties across the city. Unnamed tenants from six of the buildings — 362 Lincoln Pl., 164 Havemeyer St., 442 Lorimer St., and 101 Ocean Pwy., in Brooklyn and 409 E. 6th St., 411 E. 6th St. in Manhattancreated websites to anonymously trash their landlords, the suit says.
The disgruntled residents claim that the building owners “engage in abusive practices,” ignore bed bug infestations and refuse to clean up swastika graffiti at one of the locations.
The sites also call Charatan “the most ruthless New York City real estate mogul of her generation.”
The popular HBO documentary about Durst’s life, “The Jinx” depicted Charatan as the “mastermind” controlling her husband’s $65 million real-estate fortune.
Sources have said the marriage is one of convenience and the couple only lived together for a few years after they married in 2000.
