The Best American Crime Reporting 2009 - Jeffrey Toobin [100]
“This man is totally crazy,” Tobias said. “He says I owe him $156,000.”
According to one of Tobias’s lawyers deposed in the estate case, Ash told Tobias he was billing him for services rendered during their chats. Tobias called his lawyer, who sent Ash an e-mail urging him to cease contacting his client. Ash responded by suggesting that, if he wasn’t paid, he would have no choice but to publicly announce what he’d learned about Seth from their conversations. Ash, Tobias’s lawyer alleged, suggested that the disclosures would not sit well with Circle T’s investors. (Ash denies pressuring Tobias.)
Phyllis continued to consult with Ash, and Tobias was furious about it. On November 18, 2006, Tobias wrote Phyllis an e-mail. He said he thought their marriage was permanently broken. He saved his harshest words for Ash and for Phyllis’s relationship with him. “In the end, if I threatened your livelihood with lies and extortion; if I manufactured the craziness that he did to me you would have gone nuts. I still have some pride. You promised me you were finished with him. I believed you. I lost.”
On April 2, 2007, the West Palm Beach police logged a report from the Tobias home at 4:19 P.M.: “Male is calling. States his wife is throwing bottle of wine and food at him. Female is in the background yelling.”
Tobias was done. Then he wasn’t. Phyllis continued consulting with Ash, who advised her not to give up on their marriage. She thanked Ash by FedExing him a $10,000 watch.
Over the last weeks of Tobias’s life, the couple fought over home renovations, over Tobias’s cocaine use, and, of course, over Ash. Seth again threatened to leave her. “This divorce is going to cost me a lot less than the last one,” Tobias told his driver in August. “I’ve lost a lot of money since then.”
The next month, Tobias was dead.
JUPITER POLICE OFFICERS EXAMINED Tobias’s body shortly after he died. They noted scrapes on his nose and forehead. His glasses had floated to the bottom of the pool. Phyllis Tobias told Officer Elizabeth Juric that she believed her husband had been snorting cocaine at Bradley’s that evening with Brett Borgerson. Juric then called Borgerson, who admitted it was possible Seth had been doing coke earlier in the day. Phyllis gathered up McGee, the couple’s dog, and left the house a few minutes later. The police got a search warrant and found in the house two small plastic bags, one containing a white powder, the other a bluish substance.
Tobias was laid to rest in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, on September 7. All his Wall Street friends were there. Phyllis sat silent mostly, occasionally letting out a sob.
Phone records show that Phyllis spoke to Billy Ash eighteen times in the week following her husband’s death, including for 81 minutes on the day after his drowning. After one of the talks, Ash made a call of his own. It was to Sam Tobias, the brother closest to Seth and Seth’s heir apparent at Circle T. Ash told Sam that he had served as the couple’s assistant, which Sam thought was odd since he never remembered meeting him. Ash then told him that Phyllis had crushed Ambien tablets into a pasta sauce that she’d served his brother the night he died.
The following day, Sam Tobias called Ash with his lawyer present. Ash repeated his story, and told Sam that he had been paid for his work for the Tobiases through both a PayPal account and with cash FedExed to his San Diego apartment. Sam passed the information to the Jupiter Police Department. About two weeks after Seth’s death, the department sent two officers to San Diego, where they took Ash’s statement and then flew back to Florida. The police won’t say what Ash told them, but they were apparently not too impressed with his story. An investigation is still going on, but the cops have yet to classify Tobias’s death as suspicious.