Stacy Robins is seeking to oust the curator overseeing her late father Gerald Robins’ estate. It’s the latest legal salvo against her mother and her three siblings whom she alleges have misrepresented how much wealth their family patriarch left behind when he died nearly three years ago.
In petitions filed in Miami-Dade County probate court and in a separate pending civil lawsuit, Miami Beach-based real estate broker Stacy Robins alleges her four other family members conspired to move and hide more than $30 million in assets belonging to Gerald Robins, one of Miami Beach’s pioneer real estate investors and developers. He died on Oct. 2, 2022 after a 20-year battle with cancer.
Stacy Robins’ mother is Joan Robins, who recently sold her Star Island mansion for $38.7 million. Her siblings are Gina Robins, developer Craig Robins, who leads Miami-based Dacra, and developer Scott Robins, who leads his Miami Beach-based eponymous firm. Stacy Robins alleges that she may be entitled to a larger inheritance than the $1 million she is set to receive from the total $9.1 million currently tabulated in the estate.
On June 25, Stacy Robins filed a motion to have Boca Raton-based attorney Marsha Madrosky removed as curator of Gerald Robins’ estate. In 2023, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Bertila Soto, who is presiding over both cases, appointed Madrosky after Stacy Robins and her relatives agreed to have Madorsky manage the estate, court records show. Through October of last year, Gerald Robins’ estate paid $250,000 in fees to Madrosky, and she’s on track to earn a similar six-figure sum this year, according to court filings.
Since last year, Stacy Robins and her attorneys have lost faith in Madrosky’s ability to track down allegedly missing assets, the recent motion shows. In an emailed statement, Stacy Robins said: “Accessing and discovering information about my father’s estate remains exceedingly challenging, yet I continue to hope for truth, fairness, and due process in the probate court.”
Madrosky did not respond to an email requesting comment. Peter Prieto, the attorney representing Joan, Gina, Craig and Scott Robins told The Real Deal that there is no basis to remove Madorsky, “a highly experienced lawyer who was agreed to by all the parties.”
“What the curator has done is simply followed the law and the facts,” Prieto said. “When she does that, Stacy Robins disagrees. [Madrosky] and Stacy Robins have disagreed time and time again.”
Clashes with Madrosky
When the initial probate court petition was filed in June 2023, no dollar amount was attached to three potential assets. A month later, Stacy Robins’ relatives submitted an amended petition that provided a detailed list with more assets totaling more than $3 million.
However, after subsequent petitions from Stacy Robins, her mother and siblings agreed to include an additional $6.1 million from investment accounts in Gerald Robins’ name that had been transferred to joint accounts under his and his wife’s name weeks before he died, court records show.
In responses to her filings, Joan, Gina, Craig and Scott Robins claim that they always intended to include the $6.1 million as part of Gerald Robins’ estate, and that they allegedly told Stacy Robins about the assets prior to her petitioning probate court.
In her recent motion, Stacy Robins alleges Madrosky is running interference for her mother and her siblings by refusing to delay scheduling depositions until Stacy Robins and her attorneys receive financial and medical records related to Gerald Robins that have been subpoenaed, but have not yet been turned over.
The motion accuses Madorsky of demonstrating “unprofessional, prejudicial and biased behavior,” and failing to perform her duties “fairly, impartially, and efficiently.”
Recent emails between Madrosky and one of Stacy Robins’ lawyers attached to the motion show the curator lashing out. “The continued confrontational and antagonistic pattern is truly tiresome and non-productive,” Madorsky wrote on June 12. “It only wastes time, increases fees and builds a silly record of your complaining about unfounded, groundless, baseless yet to be committed problems.”
In another exchange the following day, Madrosky wrote: “If you wish to play a word war, let’s have at it. Trust me, I’ve got [loads] more experience and years of practice on you.”
Madrosky defends her work
Stacy Robins’ motion also accuses Madrosky of making misleading statements about one of Gerald Robins’ financial documents. An undated client profile assessment form for a Stifel investment account owned by Gerald Robins shows his net worth was between $30 million and $40 million, and he had liquid assets of $10 million and $20 million.
At an April 22 hearing for Stacy Robins’ civil lawsuit, Madrosky told Judge Soto that the client profile form was actually filled out by a Stifel broker who based the $30 million to $40 million “on a guesstimate that he did, and that Mr. Robins never gave him that information.” Soto stayed the lawsuit until the probate case is resolved.
However, Madrosky allegedly failed to disclose that Gerald Robins had signed a separate Stifel document on May 6, 2022, months before he was placed into hospice care, attesting to the veracity of the client profile form, Stacy Robin’s recent motion alleges. A copy of the declaration bearing Gerald Robins’ signature is attached to the motion.
At a hearing on Thursday, Madrosky and Prieto, the attorney for Stacy Robins’ family, disputed Stacy Robins’ allegations that the curator is biased against her, and denied that Gerald Robins actually knew what was listed in the Steifel form. “It’s almost like they want to indoctrinate the court on these allegations…when they’re simply not true,” Prieto told Judge Soto. “It’s almost like gaslighting.”
Madrosky told the judge that she is “bending over backwards to be as impartial as I can be.”
“If Stacy’s counsel came upon the Fountain of Youth…they would complain that it was either too hot or too cold,” Madrosky said. “That’s the type of complaining that we get on everything that we have done.”
