Opinion
No. 1911.
December 29, 2009.
Decree, Surrogate's Court, New York County (Renee R. Roth, S.), entered on or about February 25, 2008, which, to the extent appealed from, as limited by the briefs, granted the motion of the cotrustee, Jerome M. Weinraub, to remove S. Sidney Mandel, Esq. as trustee of the captioned trust pursuant to SCPA 719, unanimously affirmed, with costs.
S. Sidney Mandel, Appellant, Jerome M. Weinraub, Respondent.
Sweetbaum Sweetbaum, Lake Success (Marshall D. Sweetbaum of counsel), for appellant.
Kramer Levin Naftalis Frankel LLP, New York (Howard J. Neuthaler of counsel), for respondent.
Before: Andrias, J.P., Friedman, Acosta, DeGrasse and Román, JJ.
The Surrogate's Court providently exercised its discretion in removing appellant as trustee of the captioned trust ( see SCPA 719, [3], [10]; 711 [3], [8], [12]; Matter of Duke, 87 NY2d 465, 472-473). The appellant failed to account over many years, despite repeated requests by a cotrustee and beneficiary and a court order compelling him to do so by a date certain. In a parallel proceeding in Westchester County, the appellant, who is an attorney, was removed as trustee of the same decedent's testamentary trusts after he not only failed to purge a contempt order by providing accountings, but then failed to appear for the subsequent removal hearing and left the jurisdiction despite a warrant of commitment being issued by the Surrogate's Court of that County (NYLJ, July 10, 2008, at 36, 2008 NY Misc LEXIS 4366, affd 66 AD3d 691). Under these circumstances, his removal as cotrustee by the Surrogate of New York County was warranted ( see Matter of Flaum v Birnbaum, 191 AD2d 227; Matter of Britton, 173 Misc 2d 300, 303).
We have considered the appellant's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.