You would think something like this would be surprising to me, but it isn’t. One look at this woman and you can totally see her being a black widow, coke sniffing, cheating alcoholic.
According to this 2008 story in New York Magazine that is exactly what Filomena Tobias is. She is the widow of hedge funder Seth Tobias, who died under some suspicious circumstances back in the day.
Filomena also known as Phyllis has a history of marrying wealthy men and either getting divorce or is this case widowed. Here are the details and no this wasn’t the plot of the Scarface sequel.
Let’s start with how Seth died after a night out drinking with friends.
At 8:08 p.m., Tobias texted Borgerson to let him know he’d gotten home safely. Seth and Phyllis had dinner together and then, according to Phyllis, tried to have sex in the pool. They eventually gave up, Phyllis says. Seth was too drunk.
Phyllis went inside and began her nighttime beauty regimen. After a shower, she walked downstairs and squinted through the gloaming. She thought she caught a glimpse of Seth swimming naked in the pool. Then she went back upstairs and got ready for bed. But shortly after midnight, Phyllis called Brett Borgerson’s wife and left a voice-mail that said, “Please call me back, Seth is acting weird. I don’t know if he’s passed out.”
About half an hour later, she called 911. “I don’t know if my husband has passed out or what.” Her accent was thick, New Jersey. The dispatcher asked if her husband was breathing. “I don’t know, he’s turned over!” Phyllis screamed. “Please just send me somebody. He’s outside [in] the pool.” She could then be heard shouting at her floating husband, “Seth, don’t play with me.”
About fifteen minutes later, a Jupiter Police Department squad car arrived, and two officers shone their flashlights into the pool. The lights eventually settled on Phyllis. She was holding Seth in the shallow end. Paramedics arrived and began CPR. Geysers of water shot out of Seth’s lungs; rigor mortis had already set in. At 1:08 a.m., Seth Tobias was pronounced dead. He was 44.
Straight out of a Discovery ID Deadly Women episode, but it gets better.
Seth and Phyllis led an interesting life.
Before Seth Tobias wound up dead in his pool; before the accusations surfaced that his wife was a thrice-divorced pill-popper and cocaine user who drugged Seth and killed him for his money; before the claims that Seth had led a secret life in which he drank too much, snorted a boatload of coke, and liked to pick up male hustlers and strippers, including one named Tiger; before Seth’s brothers filed suit in Palm Beach to block Phyllis from getting her hands on Seth’s estimated $25 million estate; and certainly before I found myself face-to-face with the main source of all the dirt—a 300-pound gay con man and Internet psychic with a long criminal history named Billy Ash who claims to have been the couple’s personal assistant and may well have fabricated all or part of his claims regarding Seth and Phyllis because he’s a proven liar and self-serving attention seeker …
Before all of that, Seth Tobias was known to the world, to the extent he was known at all, as an upright cable-TV talking head and multimillionaire hedge-fund manager.
On December 4, the New York Times published a story on the front-page of the “Business” section about Tobias’s death. The paper retailed Ash’s more lurid allegations, including his claim that Phyllis had lured Seth into the pool with promises she would arrange a sexual liaison with a gay porn star–exotic dancer who went by the name Tiger because of the tiger stripes he had tattooed on his body. Ash alleged that Tobias met Tiger at Cupids, a West Palm Beach gay bar. The Times story included a confirmation of sorts from Adiel Hemmingway, the manager of Cupids, who said, “Seth used to come in here back when it was crazy.” Everyone read that.
Sometimes you just have to give the Daffy face and keep moving.
Actually, let’s not keep it moving. Read those last paragraphs again slowly and just pick out the keywords.
- Three times divorced
- Pill popping
- Cocaine
- Drunk
- Boatload of Coke
- Likes to pick up Male strippers named Tiger
- $25 million estate
- 300 Pound Gay Con Man who also works as an Internet Psychic
That is only a tip of the iceberg, you have to read the entire New York Magazine story to really see how twisted and crazy this lady really is.
All I have to say is that guy who was with her at the Heat game, who has been IDed as a millionaire himself might want to watch his back, before he becomes the next victim.
