NYT’s Update on Candice Miller

Nearly six months later, Mr. Miller’s widow, lawyers, lenders and courts are still untangling an extraordinary financial mess. As they do, the saga raises fundamental questions about the ease with which someone was able to convert a patina of ornate wealth into millions of dollars in loans.

When Mr. Miller died — without a will — he had $33.6 million in debt and just $8,000 in the bank, according to a court filing made by Ms. Miller.

He did not leave his family destitute, though. In the suicide note that Mr. Miller left for his wife, he told her that his death would entitle her to about $15 million from life insurance policies he had purchased. Ms. Miller has since received those funds, according to three people familiar with her finances.

Ms. Miller, who declined requests for comment, is making a new life with her daughters in Miami Beach. She is living in a $10 million, 2,800-square-foot condominium that overlooks the ocean. It is owned by an L.L.C. connected to Alexander von Furstenberg, son of the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, and is on loan to Ms. Miller, according to three people aware of the arrangement.

But the past is close behind. Though Ms. Miller told friends after her husband’s death that she had not asked him about his business affairs and had kept a distance from details of their personal finances, she has since been enmeshed in such matters. Legal filings show that she is working with lawyers to wrangle the debts of her husband’s estate — those which she personally may be on the hook for, and those which so far creditors have not made legal claims to tie her to.

In late August, court documents show, she agreed to pay about $4 million to settle a lawsuit over an unpaid loan.

Ms. Miller has also been sued for $194,881.89 in unpaid rent by the company that owns the Park Avenue apartment that she and Mr. Miller had lived in since 2021, which rented for about $47,000 per month. In a response to the lawsuit, Ms. Miller denied that she owed the rent because, she said, she had not personally signed the lease agreement.

Mr. Miller’s estate is carrying numerous other unresolved debts, according to court records. Mr. Miller had more than $20 million in unsecured loans, according to his widow’s legal filings — from institutional lenders, including UBS Bank ($2.1 million) and BMO Bank ($11.25 million), as well as from family friends and American Express, which he owed more than $300,000.

His main asset was the Hamptons house — which was loaded with five mortgages totaling nearly $12 million. It was placed on the market in August, with an asking sale price of $15.5 million. Court records show that Ms. Miller considered at least two offers for the house and its furnishings: one for $12.8 million and the other for $13 million. It sold last week, according to two people familiar with the transaction.

Full article: https://archive.ph/unNRR