LOS ANGELES (AP) — An accountant who dug through the finances of billionaire Donald Sterling to track payments he made to a girlfriend ridiculed the woman’s claim about the source of $1 million contribution she made to purchase her house.
Jay Shapiro testified Thursday that he had traced all the funds to Sterling and found it unbelievable that V. Stiviano’s friends and family gave her small bills that she squirreled away in a drawer to save up for the $1.8 million duplex.
“It would be an awful big drawer,” Shapiro said. “I find the entire story incredulous.”
Shapiro testified in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of Sterling’s once-estranged wife who is seeking return of millions of dollars in gifts, including the house, Ferrari and designer clothes, that she said the younger woman swindled from community property the couple amassed over 60 years of marriage.
Shapiro said the $3.6 million he estimates Stiviano got from Donald Sterling was a conservative figure.
Based on a recent posting by Stiviano on Instagram boasting of having a 2016 Ferrari and $1 million in an overseas bank account, Jay Shapiro said a full accounting requires a deeper investigation than he conducted to trace money he believes Sterling provided to Stiviano.
Stiviano, 32, is scheduled to testify later in the nonjury trial in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The trial put the Sterlings and Stiviano in the same room about a year after the recording of Donald Sterling telling Stiviano not to publicly associate with blacks culminated with his lifetime ban from the NBA and the record $2 billion sale of the team.
Whether Stiviano was ever a girlfriend to the billionaire, as his wife contends, she was downgraded to “ex-friend” when Donald Sterling took the stand.
The 80-year-old, who has been diagnosed with symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, was at times forgetful and testy. He said Stiviano had not contributed “50 cents” to the $1.8 million duplex now in her name.
Sterling, a lawyer and shrewd businessman who made a fortune buying apartment buildings across Los Angeles, said the house was supposed to be in the name of his family trust. Noting that Stiviano is part black and Hispanic, he said she illegally got her name inserted into escrow documents by befriending a Hispanic bank employee who added her name to a $1 million check.
Stiviano’s lawyer, Mac Nehoray, said Donald Sterling gave the gifts when he was separated from Shelly Sterling and that no real community property was transferred to his client. Further, he said the law does not allow a spouse to seek that money from a third party.
Shapiro said on cross-examination that he based his conclusions on bank records produced by the Sterlings and Stiviano and the woman’s testimony at deposition, along with her court filings estimating amounts of money she received from Sterling.
Shapiro said tracing the money was difficult because Sterling took a circuitous route that involved writing a check for cash and then using the funds to get a bank cashier’s check. While it could not positively be determined where that money ended up, similar amounts would then appear in a Stiviano account.
“All the coincidences in the world couldn’t make this not a Donald Sterling transaction,” he said of the amount landing in the woman’s bank.
The chief financial officer of Sterling’s real estate company, who notified Shelly Sterling of questionable checks her husband was drawing from the business, testified Wednesday that it appeared his boss was cutting checks intended for Stiviano that made them hard to trace.
“I believe he was doing it to lose the bloodhounds through the creek,” Darren Schield said.
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