Death of a New York Real Estate Agent

[lofter1]

Real Estate Agent Found Slain in 5th Ave. Home

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/01/nyregion/01murder-600.jpg
Bob Gruen/bobgruen.com
At a 1979 event, from left, Joey Ramone, Linda S. Stein, David Bowie, Dee Dee Ramone,
his wife, Vera March, and, standing, Danny Fields.

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/01/nyregion/01murder.html?ref=nyregion)
By BRUCE LAMBERT
November 1, 2007

A woman who helped pioneer the punk music scene, influenced the careers of Madonna and the Ramones and went on to become known as a real estate agent to the stars was found bludgeoned to death Tuesday night in her apartment at 965 Fifth Avenue, the police said yesterday.

The victim, Linda S. Stein, 62, was found shortly before 10:30 p.m. by her daughter Mandy and a friend, who called 911. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

The building, at the corner of 78th Street, has the security of doormen, elevator operators, and surveillance cameras mounted on the sidewalk canopy and in the lobby, but a reporter found an unlocked service door on the side street. There were no signs of forced entry at the apartment, nor did anything appear to be missing, investigators said.

Ms. Stein’s body was found face down in the living room in a pool of blood, the police said. She was wearing a sweatshirt with a hood, which was pulled over her head. Investigators at first believed the bleeding could have resulted from a fall, but when the hood was pulled back, a severe skull injury was exposed. Yesterday, the medical examiner’s office ruled the death a homicide.

Ms. Stein had many tumultuous relationships in her life, but investigators have not focused on any particular people, and did not comment on possible motives, a law enforcement official said. Investigators said they thought Ms. Stein was seen alive earlier on Tuesday, and they were trying to determine who was with her later that day.

Ms. Stein parlayed her show business connections — including a decades-long friendship with Elton John — into a high-profile real estate career. Her transactions included big-ticket properties in New York, but also ranged to the West Coast and even France and Italy.

The buyers and sellers in her deals read like a boldface-names column: Sting bought from Billy Joel, Harrison Ford bought from Debra Winger, and Jann Wenner bought Perry Ellis’s town house. Other clients included LaToya Jackson, Sylvester Stallone, Mary Beth Hurt, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, who bought at Trump Tower.

“My clients are my friends,” Ms. Stein was fond of saying. One of them, Mr. John — whom she met when he was still named Reg Dwight — said in a statement: “I’m absolutely shocked and upset. She’s been a friend for over 37 years and will be greatly missed, She did so much for breast cancer and was a huge supporter of my AIDS foundation.” Ms. Stein was a breast cancer survivor.

A fixture at charity galas, gallery openings and luxury stores, Ms. Stein developed her own celebrity in real estate — a profession in which agents often shun the limelight. She was the model for the brash broker portrayed by Sylvia Miles in the film “Wall Street.” In the film, the broker tries to sell an apartment to the yuppie character played by Charlie Sheen.

The daughter of a kosher caterer, Ms. Stein was born in Manhattan, grew up in Riverdale and worked first as a fifth-grade teacher. A blind date with Seymour Stein, the founder of Sire Records, put her life on a new path into the popular music business. After their marriage, the couple worked together.

Sire’s performers included Madonna, the Talking Heads, the B-52’s and the Ramones. Mr. Stein was also credited with creating the Top 100 charts for Billboard. He was unavailable for comment last night.

Ms. Stein was a co-manager of the Ramones as they helped spawn punk music and is credited with arranging their breakthrough performances in England. Her co-manager at the time, and a longtime friend, Danny Fields, attested to her forceful style. “She had powerful emotions,” he said, “and she didn’t appreciate being dissed or not having a phone call returned.”

A fan as much as a manager and promoter, Ms. Stein sporadically joined the Ramones on their road tours. She also joined Mr. John on shopping trips for furs and jewelry.

The Steins eventually grew apart, and divorced in the late 1970s. A Vanity Fair profile of Ms. Stein later quoted her ex-husband as saying: “Our marriage for me was like eight years on a roller coaster, and not always strapped in.”

By then Ms. Stein was reinventing herself in real estate. She started by claiming a finder’s fee from the society brokerage firm Edward Lee Cave when she helped sell the triplex penthouse at the San Remo on Central Park West that she and her husband had shared. Starting as a novice, she quickly established herself at the Cave firm and later switched to Prudential Douglas Elliman.

Prudential’s president and chief executive, Dottie Herman, called the murder “a terrible tragedy” and added, “Linda Stein was the broker to the stars and very loyal to our company, a good friend to all and to me personally.” Pam Liebman, president of the Corcoran Group, said, “She was the first broker to make a name for herself in dealing with the celebrity elite.”

Despite the divorce, the Steins stayed in touch. “They fight and then they make up,” Mr. Fields said. “It’s like they’re married, but they’re living separate lives.”

Besides Mandy, the Steins had another daughter, Samantha. Ms. Stein also had a 3-year-old granddaughter, Mr. Fields told The Associated Press. The two daughters left Ms. Stein’s building about a half-hour apart last night, without comment. One broke into tears when reporters and photographers rushed around her.

One building resident, Seymour Holtzman, said: “I felt 1,000 percent safe here before,” but added that he now planned to get a security system for his apartment.

Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, Christine Haughney, Daryl Khan, Anthony Ramirez and Ben Sisario.

Copyright 2007The New York Times Company

[stache]

This should get solved pretty quickly.

[Front_Porch]

A great piece from Jim Farber, the Daily News music critic:




Linda Stein was in tune with rhythm of New York

She was a louder-than-life New Yorker who muscled and charmed her way into the inner circle of some of the most powerful scenes in the city from music to real estate.


The rich and wild story of Linda Stein, the one-time manager of the seminal punk band The Ramones and ex-wife of the man who signed Madonna, parallels the last 30 years of this city's history.


In the mid-1970s, Stein was smack on the cutting edge, at a time when the whole city was moving in that direction.


Stein was around at the birth of CBGB, co-managing The Ramones with Danny Fields, while advising her then-husband, Seymour Stein, on the careers of key label bands from the Talking Heads to The Pretenders.
She was a fixture in clubs from Studio 54 to the Mudd Club and later a reliable voice in gossip columns, aided by her quick wit and fanciful way with a four-letter word.


By the late 1980s, Linda Stein had moved with the city's flow to find its new cutting edge - super-priced real estate.


She finessed herself into becoming one of the city's most powerful agents - the "Realtor to the Stars" as photographer Patrick McMullen famously called her.


She had the goods to prove it, landing mega-million-dollar apartments for Madonna, Sting, Billy Joel, Christie Brinkley, Bruce Willis, Jann Wenner, Michael Douglas, Steven Spielberg and old friend Elton John.


Elton became one of her first celebrity comrades in the '70s, though her list of big-name associations runs from musicians to moguls to movie stars (including ally Sylvester Stallone).


That's a long way from where Stein started, as Linda Adler, the daughter of a kosher caterer in Riverdale, the Bronx. By junior year of high school, she was adept at making connections that would pay off.

According to a lengthy New York magazine profile of Stein, her junior high prom date was none other than Elliot Roberts, who later managed Neil Young.


For a short time, Stein taught fifth grade in the city but nothing so routine could last long in her life. Soon enough she was married to Seymour Stein, an ambitious record promotion man, who went on to become the legendary force behind Sire Records, a hugely influential label in '70s and '80s rock and pop.


Stein had two daughters by her husband but by 1979 she was divorced.
It was then she found her new forte in real estate. City property had been undervalued for years but things were about to change. Stein was there right as the co-op sweep began.


Stein sold Wenner a townhouse that belonged to Perry Ellis for $4.2 million in 1987, and bagged Andrew Lloyd Webber a duplex in the Trump Tower for $6 million in 1988, according to the New York magazine profile.
Stein moved over to Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate in 1990, and soon sold Andy Warhol's old place for $3 million.


Yet her character was better known, and more beloved, than her commissions.


"She was the Auntie Mame of both rock 'n' roll and real estate," old friend Danny Fields said.


True, no one who knew her considered Stein soft and cuddly, but she had humor and edge to burn. Friends say she could shock and engage in equal measure, making her the kind of person everyone in this town recognizes - a real New Yorker.



ali r.
{downtown broker}

[ati_m]

So shocking =(
I've seen so many of her listings in the past 2 years or so...

... R.i.p..

[lofter1]

Assistant Arrested in Killing of Real Estate Agent

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/nyregion/09cnd-stein.html?hp)
By AL BAKER and SEWELL CHAN
November 9, 2007

A Manhattan personal assistant fatally bludgeoned her boss, the well-connected real-estate agent Linda Stein, in the woman’s opulent Fifth Avenue apartment because Ms. Stein “just kept yelling at her,” a law enforcement official said today. The assistant was arrested this morning.

Officials said the assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, made statements implicating herself in the Oct. 30 killing of Ms. Stein after detectives interviewed her and re-interviewed her in recent days. Criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office are pending. Ms. Lowery was being held at the Seventh Precinct on the Lower East Side.

According to the woman’s account, her tempestuous relationship with Ms. Stein — a punk-rock pioneer and real estate agent who worked with numerous celebrities — built from animosity to violence, the official said.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything” the official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

Another official, Paul J. Browne, who is the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that investigators followed a dual path of combing for physical evidence while conducting dozens of interviews with Ms. Stein’s friends, acquaintances and family members.

Investigators returned to Ms. Stein’s apartment to examine the door frame of the apartment and collect fiber samples from the carpet, while detectives from the 19th Precinct in Manhattan and from the Manhattan North Homicide Task Force interviewed Ms. Lowery repeatedly.

Ms. Stein, 62, a real estate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, had a varied and storied career. Born in the Bronx, the daughter of a Jewish caterer, she was a pioneer on the punk-rock scene and became a manager for the Ramones. Later, she turned to real estate, working with celebrity clients like Madonna and Billy Joel.

The singer Elton John is preparing a memorial concert in Ms. Stein’s memory.

Citing friends of Ms. Stein, The Daily News reported that the real estate broker might have met Ms. Lowery when the younger woman worked as a secretary at the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency in Manhattan.

The News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Ms. Lowery had been arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft and petty larceny — and that Ms. Stein did not know about the arrest.

According to The News, Ms. Lowery had been accused of stealing a high school friend’s identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile and to make additional purchases in Virginia. The charges against Ms. Lowery were eventually dropped and the case was sealed, The News reported.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

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http://gawker.com/

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/7/2007/11/smallish_lindastein.png (http://gawker.com/news/murder/-320904.php)

Natavia Lowery, slain broker Linda Stein (http://gawker.com/news/linda-stein/)'s personal assistant, has been arrested for Stein's murder after "implicating herself." Lowery, a former member of the Black Finesse Modeling Troupe (http://www.freewebs.com/blackfinesse94/aboutushistory.htm), has previously been arrested on charges of identity theft. According to the Daily News, "Some of Lowery's relatives insisted she was innocent." Some!
[NYDN (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/11/09/2007-11-09_personal_assistant_arrested_in_linda_ste.html)]

[infoshare]

Assistant Arrested in Killing of Real Estate Agent
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/09/nyregion/09cnd-stein.html?em&ex=1194757200&en=2a98fbe588b6c9e4&ei=5087%0A


By AL BAKER and SEWELL CHAN
Published: November 9, 2007

A Manhattan personal assistant fatally bludgeoned her boss, the well-connected real-estate agent Linda Stein, in the woman’s opulent Fifth Avenue apartment because Ms. Stein “just kept yelling at her,” a law enforcement official said today. The assistant was arrested this morning.


Officials said the assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, made statements implicating herself in the Oct. 30 killing of Ms. Stein after detectives interviewed her and re-interviewed her in recent days. Criminal charges from the Manhattan district attorney’s office are pending. Ms. Lowery was being held at the Seventh Precinct on the Lower East Side.

According to the woman’s account, her tempestuous relationship with Ms. Stein — a punk-rock pioneer and real estate agent who worked with numerous celebrities — built from animosity to violence, the official said.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything” the official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

Another official, Paul J. Browne, who is the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said that investigators followed a dual path of combing for physical evidence while conducting dozens of interviews with Ms. Stein’s friends, acquaintances and family members.

Investigators returned to Ms. Stein’s apartment to examine the door frame of the apartment and collect fiber samples from the carpet, while detectives from the 19th Precinct in Manhattan and from the Manhattan North Homicide Task Force interviewed Ms. Lowery repeatedly.

Ms. Stein, 62, a real estate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, had a varied and storied career. Born in the Bronx, the daughter of a Jewish caterer, she was a pioneer on the punk-rock scene and became a manager for the Ramones. Later, she turned to real estate, working with celebrity clients like Madonna and Billy Joel.

The singer Elton John is preparing a memorial concert in Ms. Stein’s memory.

Citing friends of Ms. Stein, The Daily News reported that the real estate broker might have met Ms. Lowery when the younger woman worked as a secretary at the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency in Manhattan.

The News, citing unidentified sources, reported that Ms. Lowery had been arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft and petty larceny — and that Ms. Stein did not know about the arrest.

According to The News, Ms. Lowery had been accused of stealing a high school friend’s identity and using it to open accounts at Target and T-Mobile and to make additional purchases in Virginia. The charges against Ms. Lowery were eventually dropped and the case was sealed, The News reported.

In a phone interview from her home in Dalzell, S.C., Ms. Lowery’s aunt, Julia Carrow Lowery, 44, said a detective had called her sister this morning to say that Ms. Lowery had been arrested.

Ms. Lowery insisted that her niece enjoyed working for Ms. Stein. Natavia Lowery found the job through a temporary employment agency and began work for Ms. Stein in July, the aunt said.

“She always talked about the lady, how nice she was,” Julia Lowery said. “She was not nice to a lot of other people, but she was nice to Natavia.”

Julia Lowery said her niece grew up in New York, graduated from a college in the South and “comes from a good Christian family.”

“My niece is not even capable of doing something like that,” Ms. Lowery said. “When she gets mad, she is not capable of going into a rage.”

[MidtownGuy]

Linda Stein must have been a royal bitch of a boss to actually drive someone to murder her. I'm not saying she should be killed for it, but why would you be always yelling and screaming at someone, if they're that bad, then why not just fire them? And if a boss is always yelling and screaming to the point that you start to imagine KILLING him/her, I think it's definitely time to quit and find another job! Anything beats prison!!
Maybe there's more to the story?

[Fabrizio]

I'll bet Stein saved this girl with a job, generosity and opportunity. So she was big, loud and carried on... an old NY-style way of getting things done that doesn't work in today's culture and with today's young people. Stein isn't here to defend herself.... I bet this girl is going to get off very easy.

[lofter1]

The fact the the prior identity theft situation was dropped / sealed is an interesting legal wrinkle.

I think there's more that will come out on this one.

And, without sounding too cold, curious how they'll cast the film version ...

[lofter1]

Celeb realtor's assistant confesses to murder

http://www.amny.com/media/photo/2007-11/33715260.jpg
(AP Photo/Andy Kropa)
NYPD detectives escort Natavia Lowery from the
Seventh Police Precinct in New York.

BY ROCCO PARASCANDOLA
November 9, 2007

The personal assistant did it, cops say.

The mystery surrounding the penthouse murder of celebrity realtor Linda Stein was solved yesterday, police sources said, when her personal assistant implicated herself in the Upper East Side murder, telling detectives she was tired of constantly being yelled at and reprimanded.

The assistant, Natavia Lowery, 26, of Williamsburg was arrested early today and will be charged with second-degree murder in the Oct. 30 slaying of Stein, 62. Stein first made her mark as a punk rock pioneer, then switched gears and made millions selling high-end real eastate as the so-called "Realtor to the Stars."

During a press conference today, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Lowery told detectives that Stein was "verbally abusive" to her the day of the murder, using profanity and derogatory language. She also said Stein blew marijuana smoke in her face before she snapped and hit Stein six or seven times with a yoga stick, Kelly said.

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2007-11/33587366.jpg
(c) The New York Times / May 7, 2001
Linda Stein

Stein, known for both her caring ways and her tempestuouus personality, was a demanding boss, "too demanding," Lowery said, according to one source.

"She was constantly yelling at me,'' one source quoted Lowery as saying. "She basically said Stein wouldn't stop and that she couldn't take it anymore."

The fatal confrontation, police said, took place the afternoon of Oct. 30, when Lowery showed up at Stein's Fifth Avenue home, a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park.

Mandy Stein found her mother dead in a pool of blood in her Fifth Avenue apartment, overlooking Central Park, the night of Oct. 30.

Lowery is scheduled to be arraigned later today.

Police at first believed Stein, a cancer survivor, fell and banged her head and that the blood thinner medication she took explained the amount of blood.

An autopsy the next day, however, concluded that she had been murdered, beaten about the back of her head and neck with a blunt object.

Given the relatively tight security at the building, detectives almost immediately zeroed in building workers and those closest to her family, friends and colleagues.


Copyright © 2007, AM New York

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The last listing of Linda Stein

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/HLSPhotos/104/H0157104.jpg

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/HLSPhotos/104/H0157104G.jpg

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/HLSPhotos/104/H0157104E.jpg

http://www.prudentialelliman.com/HLSPhotos/104/H0157104D.jpg

Posted by Laura Mann (http://weblogs.newsday.com/realestate/blog/2007/11/peter_beard_among_linda_steins.html)
REAL LI
November 1, 2007

Prudential Douglas Elliman agent Linda Stein (http://www.prudentialelliman.com/mainsite/agents/agents.aspx?BID=LSSS), who was killed yesterday in her Manhattan apartment, counted photographer Peter Beard among her recent clients.

Beard’s Montauk estate (http://www.prudentialelliman.com/Listings.aspx?ListingID=H0157104&rentalperiod=&SearchType=quick&Region=HNF), which includes a carriage house and four rustic cabins, has been on the market since 2005. The five-acre property sits on an 80-foot bluff overlooking the Atlantic. Last year, Prudential’s CEO Dottie Herman told Newsday that it is the last available oceanfront property before the Montauk lighthouse.

The Beard estate is also listed with Prudential’s agent John Golden, who told Newsday today, "Linda and I worked together for years. She was a great broker and passionate about real estate, and she was great at it. She was one of a kind."

Last year, the price on Beard's estate went from from $32 million to $20 million. It is currently listed at $26 million. Beard’s ex-wife, model Cheryl Tiegs, is still listed as owner on property records.

[stache]

It's so Y2K!

[lofter1]

I'm confused (http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/rnr/474172366.html) ...

[lofter1]

aha ...

Yoga Stick (http://www.india-shopping.net/Yoga/yoga-stick.html) (Danda)

http://www.india-shopping.net/Yoga/Images/stick-danda.jpg

Yoga Danda, also known as Yoga staff is a special T - shaped wooden stick that is mainly used by yogis from ancient times for meditation purposes. This ancient meditation tool when supported under the armpits, regulate the breathing, hence often used prior to Pranayama or meditation. It offers a convenient way to alter breath flow between nostrils and help gaining the maximum out of Pranayama techniques, especially those requiring alternate nostril breathing, such as Nadi Shodhana Pranayama. This danda is used to create a balance between Ida nadi (mental energy) and Pingala nadi (physical energy), and ease the flow of Sushumna nadi (spiritual energy).

The Yoga Danda is a T-shaped wooden staff which is usually 2 feet in height and has a U shaped bent in its horizontal part to provide a comfortable support to the armpit.

To use Yoga danda sit on the floor in any meditative posture such as Siddhasana, Sukhasana or Padmasana with your spine straight. Support your torso on the Yoga Danda by resting your armpit on the U-shaped horizontal member of the staff. The Danda should be placed under the side that has the open nostril. For example, if the flow is free on the right nostril, support your right armpit on the Yoga danda. After a few minutes, you will feel the flow of breath easier through other nostril, the left nostril. Once you achieved the balanced flow you can remove the Yoga danda. The stick can also be used to rest arm while rotating mala beads.

This excellent Meditation tool has been used by yogis as it assists in one's spiritual practice. The wandering yogis used this stick as a vital complement to their yogic practices. It has a great symbolic value, when viewed straight on, it resembles a spinal column descending from the shoulders of a human being. In spiritual terms, this is known as the Meru Danda, or the cosmic pillar that is the center of the Universe. The yoga danda is supposed to remind us that wherever we are is the center of the universe - and that is within us, the spinal column up which rises the Kundalini Shakti - the creative power of the universe.

[investordude]

Midtown, I see you've upgraded from defending terrorist states trying to undermine democracy to defending murderers. Has it occurred to you this woman is playing the race card to get sympathy for a jury? It's OK Simpson trial all over again. If you kill someone - there's no excuse for that, even if she called you a name. From what I can tell, she probably didn't. After all, she's well liked - Elton John wants to throw a concert singing about their friendship. That doesn't like an evil bitch to me - more likely she's a bleeding heart liberal who wanted to help someone and didn't ignore warning signs this person was violent.

[investordude]

I reread my post - midtown I know you're not defending murder and I wrote that badly. What I think I'm trying to suggest is that you have a reflex to come to the defense of the guy perpetrating violence because the victim may not be perfect. I see that mentality in your Israel thread comments - but especially here - because I just don't see how anyone would find the comments from a murderer with a strong motive to lie more credible than the outpouring of sympathy from all these people who knew this women who was murdered. I say we shouldn't let a murderer ruin this woman's reputation.

[lofter1]

Lots of cards being played here ...

The accused plays the race card ("She called me something that made me crazy so I hit her -- and hit her again -- and again").

And the victim's ATM card is found in the possession of the accused (along with $800 from the victim's bank account).

What is that? Restitution?

Personal Assistant Is Charged in Broker’s Killing

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/11/10/nyregion/09stein.xlarge1.jpg
Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Natavia Lowery at the Seventh Precinct on Friday.

NY TIMES (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/nyregion/10stein.html?ref=nyregion)
By AL BAKER and ANNE BARNARD
November 10, 2007

A personal assistant was charged yesterday with using a piece of exercise equipment to fatally bludgeon her boss, Linda Stein, the former punk-rock manager turned real estate broker, in her Fifth Avenue penthouse, the authorities said.

The assistant, Natavia S. Lowery, 26, of Brooklyn, said she was driven to violence by the victim herself, who, she said, treated her poorly, “just kept yelling at her” and even made her ill by blowing marijuana smoke in her face, officials said.

Finally, Ms. Lowery told detectives, she bashed Ms. Stein six or seven times in the back of the head on Oct. 30 with what she called a yoga stick after Ms. Stein, 62, made a racially demeaning remark, other law enforcement officials said.

“Lowery, who had been Stein’s personal assistant for approximately four months, claimed that Stein had been verbally abusive to her,” Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at a news conference yesterday at 1 Police Plaza.

Several friends of Ms. Stein, who have described her as a larger-than-life, sometimes volatile character, said they did not know Ms. Lowery. Ms. Lowery’s aunt, Julia Carrow Lowery, said her niece had enjoyed working for Ms. Stein, and declared her incapable of killing anyone.

Police detectives interviewed Ms. Lowery on Oct. 31, and again on Thursday before making the arrest. Officials in the Manhattan district attorney’s office charged her with second-degree murder. Yesterday, after she was held overnight at the Seventh Precinct station house on the Lower East Side, two detectives took her, handcuffed, head down and silent, to be arraigned.

At the arraignment last night, Ms. Lowery’s lawyer, Gilbert Parris, said that he was not present when she was questioned, “clearly a breach of my representation of her.” Outside the courtroom, he said he would challenge the admissibility of her statement.

Officials said they believed that Ms. Stein — who helped pioneer the punk music scene by managing the Ramones and went on to help celebrities buy and sell their homes — had tempestuous dealings with Ms. Lowery that escalated from animosity to violence.

“It was that Linda just kept yelling at her, over everything,” one law enforcement official said. “They fought. It was like a continuous thing, like a buildup.”

The final episode exploded in Ms. Stein’s 18th-floor apartment at 965 Fifth Avenue. The law enforcement officials — in recounting Ms. Lowery’s account, which was videotaped — said that Ms. Lowery was retrieving her boss’s e-mail messages when Ms. Stein approached her and blew smoke in her face. (A family lawyer said that Ms. Stein occasionally smoked marijuana to ease the pain from recurring bouts of cancer.)

Then lunchtime approached. Ms. Lowery said that when Ms. Stein offered to get her something to eat, she declined, explaining that she had savings in the bank and could get her own lunch with her own money, officials said.

Then, according to Ms. Lowery, Ms. Stein said to her that she was apparently one of the few black people who could save money.

Ms. Stein “used profanity and derogatory language and waved the yoga stick at her,” Mr. Kelly said, summarizing Ms. Lowery’s admission. “Lowery said she grabbed the yoga stick from Stein’s hands and struck her with it.”

Ms. Lowery told the detectives that she used the pole-like stick (which another official said might be a Pilates stick) to hit Ms. Stein in the back of the head and neck, officials said. At five feet three inches, according to her driver’s license, Ms. Lowery would have been only slightly taller than the five-foot Ms. Stein.

The killing took place between 12:15 and 1 p.m., the police said. Then, carrying a bag, Ms. Lowery left, locked the door behind her, and was caught on surveillance tape, officials said.

Detectives said that some people they interviewed after the killing said they had tried to call Ms. Stein on her cellphone but got her assistant, who said she was not available. Mr. Kelly said that Ms. Lowery left the apartment shortly after 1 p.m.

At Ms. Lowery’s arraignment last night, an assistant district attorney, Shanda Strain, said that after the killing, Ms. Lowery used Ms. Stein’s A.T.M. card to withdraw $800.

Ms. Stein’s body was found on her living room floor shortly before 10:30 p.m. by her daughter Mandy, who called 911. Ms. Stein was pronounced dead at the scene.

The police have not found the murder weapon, Mr. Kelly said.

Those who knew Ms. Stein and were fond of her said she could be tough on those who worked for her. But they said she was not a racist. Ms. Lowery, in her admission, said that Ms. Stein treated other people badly, officials said.

The demanding fashion editor in the book and film “The Devil Wears Prada” “was Snow White compared to Linda,” said Steven Gaines, the author of “The Sky’s the Limit,” a book about New York real estate, and a longtime friend of Ms. Stein’s.

“I bet you Linda had been bickering, fighting and saying nasty things to this girl all along,” he added. “Linda was very, very bad on her underlings. She was really, really bad.

“Linda talked out of the side of her mouth and opened up a really big, loud, dirty mouth,” he said.

Commissioner Kelly said that Ms. Lowery was arrested in December on misdemeanor charges of identity theft. He said she “stole another woman’s identification and used it to obtain a credit card in the victim’s name.”

Julia Lowery said in a phone interview from her home in Dalzell, S.C., that those charges against her niece were eventually dropped, an account the police disputed.

The detectives who arrested Ms. Lowery on Thursday, Antonio Rivera and Kevin Walla, had built up enough rapport with her that she called Detective Walla on Thursday to complain about reporters outside her home in Williamsburg. The detectives arranged to meet her at a diner, and there, they persuaded her to go with them to the precinct house, where they questioned her more seriously.

Ms. Lowery found the job through a temporary-employment agency and started working for Ms. Stein in July, Julia Lowery said. “She always talked about the lady, how nice she was. She was not nice to a lot of other people, but she was nice to Natavia.”

“She is her assistant,” Ms. Lowery said of her niece’s relationship to Ms. Stein. “She makes appointments for her. She says she washed the lady’s hair and stuff for her.”

Julia Lowery said of her niece, “When she gets mad, she is not capable of going into a rage.”

Ms. Stein, a real estate broker at Prudential Douglas Elliman, had a varied and storied career. She was born in the Bronx, where her father was a caterer. She turned to real estate after time on the road with the Ramones, and she filled her Rolodex with the names and numbers of countless celebrities.

Working as Linda Stein’s personal assistant could be a dream job and a nightmare rolled into one, friends said.

Her assistants shuttled between Ms. Stein’s cozy, gilt-furnished apartment overlooking Central Park — to which they always had keys — and her Madison Avenue office, where they sat at the desk that Ms. Stein rarely used.

They went with Ms. Stein to lunches and parties — “fabulous parties,” Mr. Gaines said.

They handled most of her typing and computer work, which Ms. Stein — who had long red fingernails and prided herself on being a Luddite — hated to do.

She went through many assistants over the years, said Mr. Gaines and another close friend of Ms. Stein’s, Danny Fields, her co-manager in the Ramones days.
Mr. Fields said that Ms. Stein fired the assistant who preceded Ms. Lowery because she believed the woman had sided against her in a dispute with a colleague over a commission.

The assistants were not required to be glamorous, Mr. Gaines said. But they were ubiquitous. Whenever Mr. Fields went to visit Ms. Stein, even in the evening, he said, an assistant “would be making phone calls and lists and putting stacks of paper in little piles and stuff.”

Ms. Lowery went home from work to a very different scene. She lived in a brick building near a parking lot, a bodega and a beauty parlor, not far from the elevated tracks where the J and M line runs along Broadway.

Not much is known about Ms. Lowery’s past work experience. A spokeswoman for Rogers & Cowan, a Manhattan public relations firm, said that company records showed Ms. Lowery worked there from early 2001 to late 2002, but that employees there did not remember her.

Edward Hayes, a lawyer for Seymour Stein, Ms. Stein’s former husband, and their daughters, Samantha Stein-Wells and Mandy Stein, said he believed there must be more to the story than an argument over a lunch invitation.

“That’s not a good reason to beat somebody to death,” he said, adding that in his long experience as a prosecutor, he never heard of a woman beating another woman to death.

Seymour Stein said in a brief telephone interview: “I’m numb. I don’t know anything, and I don’t want to say anything.”

Reporting was contributed by Ann Farmer, Kate Hammer, Colin Moynihan and Carolyn Wilder.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[stache]

Way more trendy than a yoga stick!

[lofter1]

And the Pilatesstick (http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Pilatesstick-Pilates-Stick_W0QQitemZ260179823181QQihZ016QQcategoryZ1277 QQcmdZViewItem)® (http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Pilatesstick-Pilates-Stick_W0QQitemZ260179823181QQihZ016QQcategoryZ1277 QQcmdZViewItem) looks to be just as lethal :eek: ...

http://www.activeforever.com/images/upload/top.jpg

[lofter1]

... Ms. Lowery told the detectives that she used the pole-like stick (which another official said might be a Pilates stick) to hit Ms. Stein in the back of the head and neck, officials said ...

The killing took place between 12:15 and 1 p.m., the police said. Then, carrying a bag, Ms. Lowery left, locked the door behind her, and was caught on surveillance tape, officials said.


Hmmmmm ...

http://www.activeforever.com/images/upload/claire.jpg

Pilatesstick (http://www.pilatesstick.com/) Specifications:

Pilatesstick® Bag Length: 29"
Pilatesstick® Bag Closure: Zipper

[stache]

Reminds me of the Abfab episode where Patsy has an ENORMOUS version of that bag for a weekend getaway -

[MidtownGuy]

investordude:Midtown, I see you've upgraded from defending terrorist states trying to undermine democracy to defending murderers.

WTF?? Were you coked up when you wrote this? Anyway, I never defended the terrorist state of Israel:p.


I reread my post - midtown I know you're not defending murder and I wrote that badly.

Good. You say you read your post again. Now I suggest you go back and reread mine. When you do it, you can leave our Israel discussion out of your mind since it contains absolutely nothing that is germane to this event, despite your odious attempt to paint me as some kind of violence-endorsing sicko.

Let's get something straight, dude. Nowhere in my post did I defend what Ms. Lowery did. In fact, what I suggested was that she should have quit and found herself another job as soon as she even imagined such an act.

What I think I'm trying to suggest is that you have a reflex to come to the defense of the guy perpetrating violence because the victim may not be perfect.

I came to the defense of no one. Show me where I did that, not through your own loose interpretation, but in my actual words.

I just don't see how anyone would find the comments from a murderer with a strong motive to lie more credible than...blah..blah blah...blah...

Now where did I ever mention credibility? Man, it's like you were having a conversation entirely in your own mind. It seems to me you lack the abbility to make clear distinctions between unrelated things, and certainly the ability to really listen to what someone is saying without getting it twisted with your own issues.

By the way, the OJ trial doesn't have a damned thing to do with this either. What a goofy thing to mention. Nothing similar, except the presence of blood and a Black defendant. Yes, I think I'm starting to see what your problem is.

Then, at the end, you had to throw in the "bleeding heart liberal" blurb to further reveal your world view. I would suggest that it's likely you're a "right wing nut" but I prefer to keep the discussion civil, unlike you with your frequent attempts at provocation.

[lofter1]

They're going to have to up-date THIS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clue-do-1998.jpg) :cool:

WARNING: Spoiler Alert

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Answer: In the Penthouse

By the Personal Assistant

With the Pilates Stick

[Fabrizio]

lol.

[investordude]

Midtown, I didn't call *you* a bleeding heart liberal. Read the post - my guess is there were warning signs this lady ignored about her assistant behavior.

And the OJ Simpson trial is entirely relevant - she's making up a story about this woman being some sort of "oppressor" to lay the race card in her defense. And you fell for it - you said she must be a bitch if someone wanted to kill her. The point is - in murder cases - people *DO* play the race card because unfortunately it works as the OJ trial demonstrated. I'm just observing that's what the defendant is doing here - it's a great strategy on her part given what we see about our legal system. But I'm not going to swallow the bait.

[lofter1]

But even Stein's "longtime friends" are tellling the NY Times that she could be a royal bitch, so let's not jump to the conclusion that the PA is making up stories:



Those who knew Ms. Stein and were fond of her said she could be tough on those who worked for her. But they said she was not a racist. Ms. Lowery, in her admission, said that Ms. Stein treated other people badly, officials said.

The demanding fashion editor in the book and film “The Devil Wears Prada” “was Snow White compared to Linda,” said Steven Gaines, the author of “The Sky’s the Limit,” a book about New York real estate, and a longtime friend of Ms. Stein’s.

“I bet you Linda had been bickering, fighting and saying nasty things to this girl all along,” he added. “Linda was very, very bad on her underlings. She was really, really bad.

“Linda talked out of the side of her mouth and opened up a really big, loud, dirty mouth,” he said.

[MidtownGuy]

So she wasn't a girl scout after all, friendship with Elton John notwithstanding:rolleyes:. Something told me a pot smoking punk rock promoter from the CBGB era wasn't as nun-like as you portrayed her.

re "bleeeding heart liberal": Yeah I know you weren't calling me that, investordude. I didn't say you did, just that it's typically provocative of you to throw around phrases like 'bleeding heart liberal' which you know will bait people.

OJ case: where was the opressor story in that case? and in this case, up until now, I don't see much of a "race card" being played, except by you... introducing race in a way that, as far as has been so far revealed, does not seem very central to the case. We may learn more, but until now, I haven't heard that race is the issue here.

Again, about Linda Stern, it seems she really was a royal B-YATCH after all!:p NOT that she should be murdered for it. I put it in bold so you can't miss it, now please don't read more into it than what is there.

[investordude]

Here's the headline of the story from the real deal. "
Work, racial slur allegedly sparked Stein murder"

So, that's the argument she's trying to get through the media. I don't interpret "difficult to work for" with being a bitch. I mean, I've had bosses that were difficult to work for and were still nice people - both men and women. My own interpretation is she's actually too nice - she probably had warning signals something was the matter with this lady but wanted to believe in people were good and was apparently trying to buy her lunch - probably as they were talking over some sort of conflict. So, she was probably killed for believing too much in the good of people - not for being an evil bitch.

[lofter1]

I'm supposing that you can interchange "racial" for "derogatory" ...


Ms. Stein “used profanity and derogatory language and waved the yoga stick at her,” Mr. Kelly said, summarizing Ms. Lowery’s admission.


My supposition is based on this:


Ms. Lowery said that when Ms. Stein offered to get her something to eat, she declined, explaining that she had savings in the bank and could get her own lunch with her own money, officials said.

Then, according to Ms. Lowery, Ms. Stein said to her that she was apparently one of the few black people who could save money.

[londonlawyer]

YIKES!!!!

http://www.newsday.com/media/photo/2007-11/33587366.jpg

[stache]

Sounds like Linda was trying to make nice by offering to buy lunch but the assistant wasn't in the mood to accept an olive branch.

[lofter1]

LOL ^

Linda probably had a bad case of the munchies after toking on all that reefer

[lofter1]

I apologize for making too much fun of this bad & sad situation ...

From what I've read about her I think I would have liked Linda, and could've had a good time hanging out with her (if she didn't bite my hed off).

But I'm a sucker for a good murder mystery :cool:

[stache]

This is one of those great NY stories...

[lofter1]

Absolutely ^ it's a classic, but with a unique twist:


Edward Hayes, a lawyer for Seymour Stein, Ms. Stein’s former husband, and their daughters ... said he believed there must be more to the story than an argument over a lunch invitation.

“That’s not a good reason to beat somebody to death,” he said, adding that in his long experience as a prosecutor, he never heard of a woman beating another woman to death.

[lofter1]

Aide's confession in Linda Stein murder
hard to wave away

http://www.nydailynews.com/img/2007/11/10/amd_lowery_arrest.jpg
NYPD detectives escort Linda Stein murder suspect
Natavia Lowery, the celeb Realtor's assistant,
from the 7th Precinct on Friday.

NY DAILY NEWS (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/11/11/2007-11-11_aides_confession_in_linda_stein_murder_h.html)
Michael Daly
November 11th 2007

From among the waiting defendants rose a delicate hand accused of bludgeoning to death the "Realtor to the Stars," the close pal of Madonna and Elton John and Sly Stallone.

The slender fingers flexed slightly as accused killer Natavia Lowery gave a wave to her family in a spectators' bench in the arraignment part at Manhattan Criminal Court.

Lowery's father responded with a thumbs up, but his expression was bleak. The court clerk called the next case, one that makes you wonder what lurks beneath the surface in this sparkling city of celebrities and multimillion-dollar apartments.

"No. 874, Natavia Lowery. Step up."

Lowery stood before the judge in a bright-orange top, black raincoat, brown pants and white sneakers.

"This is a particularly brutal homicide, your honor," the prosecutor said. "The defendant is the personal assistant to the victim, Linda Stein."

Lowery's surprisingly delicate hands were clasped lightly behind her back, the right thumb fidgeting as the prosecutor noted that Stein had suffered multiple skull fractures.

The case can go one of two ways. Lowery could plead guilty, but she will not do so unless she is offered a deal. Such a deal is likely to fall far short of the justice Stein's daughter called for at her mother's funeral.

More likely, Lowery will go to trial. The first big test will be whether her confession is admissible. Her attorney, Gilbert Parris, will no doubt point out - as he did at the arraignment - that he informed the police a week before the interrogation he did not want them speaking to his client unless he was present.

The prosecution will likely emphasize that Lowery initiated the contact when she called police to complain about reporters at her front door. The detectives say she subsequently waived her right to an attorney.

The letter of the law appears to be on the side of the prosecution. But a judge may wonder how someone could submit willingly to hour after hour of interrogation and then finally confess to a homicide.

"It depends on who the judge is," an experienced investigator said.

The gist of what Lowery said near the end of her 12 hours "in the box" has already reached the public. Lowery said Stein berated her for being slow in retrieving e-mail and blew marijuana smoke in her face. Stein supposedly made a conciliatory offer to buy Lowery lunch, to which the assistant replied she had her own money and could buy her own lunch.

According to a top police official, Lowery says Stein responded, "Black people don't have any money." One investigator reports that Lowery's account has Stein speaking more crudely.

Whatever Lowery said in her confession is only her version of what transpired, in attempting to justify a brutal killing. Stein is not here to defend herself and there are no witnesses.

Whoever doubts Lowery will surely point to the college roommate who describes her as "completely deceiving," a thief with no apparent guilt. The doubters will also note - as the prosecutor did at the arraignment - that Lowery used Stein's ATM card to make a post-homicide withdrawal of $800, a crime that undercuts her indignation about having her own money and seems somehow less forgivable than killing in a blind fury.

Those who believe Lowery's account will likely contend that those delicate hands could have only turned murderous after extreme provocation. Her lawyer described Lowery at the arraignment as a Hunter College graduate with no prior criminal convictions who is active in the First Corinthian Baptist Church in Brooklyn.

Nobody answered the phone at the church yesterday morning, but whatever the pastor might have to say about Lowery and however this case unfolds, the question of race has been raised. The family has suggested this is why the detectives zeroed in on Lowery.

"Whenever there's someone involved with power and influence, black people get scapegoated," one family member said.

In truth, the detectives energetically investigated everybody who had access to the apartment, including Stein's daughter, Mandy. The question remains whether Stein spoke as if there were still slave cabins in a city where she sold multimillion-dollar homes to the stars.

© Copyright 2007 NYDailyNews.com

[lofter1]

Linda Stein's brain tumor drugs
may have sparked fatal fight

NY DAILY NEWS (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime_file/2007/11/11/2007-11-11_linda_steins_brain_tumor_drugs_may_have_.html)
BY JOANNA MOLLOY, VERONIKA BELENKAYA, ALISON GENDAR and JONATHAN LEMIRE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Sunday, November 11th 2007

Slain realtor to the stars Linda Stein was diagnosed with a brain tumor just weeks before she was killed and was taking medication that caused severe mood swings, her daughter said Saturday.

Samantha Stein-Wells said the drugs could have caused Stein, who had battled breast cancer three times, to lose her cool.

But she insisted suspect Natavia Lowery, her mother's personal assistant, had no reason to beat her to death with a yoga stick.

"My mother didn't deserve this. ... They had just found a brain tumor a couple of weeks before she was killed," Stein-Wells said. "Everyone knew my mother was very sick. You could look at her and know she was sick."

Stein showed great kindness to Lowery - even paying for her boyfriend to travel to the city for her birthday, friends and relatives said Saturday.

Even if Stein yelled at Lowery, the younger woman should not have turned to violence, the daughter said.

"If Miss Lowery had just walked out of the room and come back in 15 minutes, my mother would have calmed down," Stein-Wells said.

Instead, cops say, the 26-year-old used a 4-pound yoga bar to bash Stein to death in the broker's Fifth Ave. penthouse. Her body was found by her other daughter, Mandy Stein, on Oct. 30.

The petite Lowery told cops she attacked Linda Stein on Oct.30 after the 62-year-old mocked her race and blew marijuana smoke in her face, police sources said.

The Stein family's lawyer also said the punk-music pioneer, who became wealthy selling real estate to Madonna and other celebrities, had been ill and sometimes lost her temper.

"Linda Stein was very sick and very medicated," said attorney Eddie Hayes. "She had always been prone to mood swings, but the medications and her illness intensified them."

"People who worked with her knew this, and when she had one of her outbursts, they walked away. They did not pick up something and start swinging."

After the murder, Lowery, who was arrested Friday, swiped Linda Stein's bank card and withdrew $800 from an ATM, police said.

Linda Stein's pals said she had been fond of Lowery and even flew her boyfriend from Virginia to New York in September to celebrate her assistant's birthday.

Lowery's parents, who visited her at Rikers Island Saturday, also said the pair were close.

It was Lowery who encouraged Linda Stein to enroll in Alcoholics Anonymous recently, they said.

"The [pot] smoking and the drinking bothered my daughter," said Lowery's father, adding that she briefly quit before Linda Stein begged her to come back.

"She loved my daughter, and my daughter loved her."

"This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me," said Lowery's mother, Phoebe Nesmith. "This is like a nightmare I can't wake up from."

Linda Stein smoked pot against her doctor's orders, but one of her longtime pals angrily denied Saturday that she was racist. "Linda loved or hated people based on who they were - and what they did to her that day - not what they were," said Danny Fields, manager of the Ramones.

Linda Stein, who was divorced from Seymour Stein, a former president of Sire Records, hired Lowery without knowing that a former high school classmate had accused her of stealing her identity to make credit card purchases last year.

Lowery was charged with two misdemeanors, but the case was sealed, and Lowery's lawyer told the Daily News that she was never convicted.

Linda Stein told pals she wondered if Lowery was making unauthorized charges on her credit cards, but it was not clear if she had confronted her assistant.

Lowery had been finding work in New York through the Axion temp agency. She worked for Planned Parenthood before landing the job with Linda Stein. A lawyer for Axion said the company was "cooperating with the police fully."

Lowery's college roommate in Virginia Beach told The News she'd been leery of living with Lowery after she stole $250 from another friend, but never dreamed she'd be capable of murder.

"I would never expect her to go to that depth of beating someone," said the former roommate at North Carolina State University, who asked that her name be withheld.

"It's different from the Natavia that I know."

With Carrie Melago in Virginia Beach

© Copyright 2007 NYDailyNews.com

[infoshare]

Continuing WiredNY coverage of the NY Real Estate scene, I post some additional news items on the Linda Stein murder case. Here are some reports that Linda Stein was (among other things) in the process of leaving (http://www.nysun.com/article/65985) the Real Estate Brokerage firm Douglas Elliman; with another news item (http://gothamist.com/2007/11/08/linda_stein_liv.php) stating that she "lived for the Battle".