What if we've been thinking about the Sherman murders all wrong? Part 1
A Sherman family insider recently made a startling suggestion to me. What if Barry was never a target and was just collateral damage, the insider asked. What if the killer was after Honey, and Barry, unfortunately, came home earlier than usual and ended up dead as a result?
Perhaps I read way too much crime fiction, where this kind of plot twist is a regular occurrence, but the insider’s theory seems well worth considering. A lot of the weirdness in this case leads straight back to Honey Sherman including the facts that her will is either missing or non-existant and that her sister, Mary Shechtman, has repeatedly made claims that Honey intended to give her as much as half a billion dollars.
While Mary has not replied to my requests for interviews, court documents from lawuits in Miami, Montreal and Toronto offer insights into her behaviour and business practices as well as her relationships with her sister, husband and children.
Katsantonis et al v. Shechtman et al
In this 2014 Florida case, both Mary and Honey were sued in their roles as co-trustees of the Shechtman Family Trust. The two-day trial revolved around the sale of a Sunny Isles condo unit in Trump Tower III that was used by Mary, her husband and their three children, and was the sole asset held by the family trust.
The transcripts reveal a trial that was pure comedy gold complete with hapless lawyers and a judge who could have stepped out of a Carl Hiaasen novel. Federico Moreno, then the Chief US Judge for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, kept things moving at a swift pace while peppering the proceedings with one-liners about everything from Honey Sherman’s travel habits to “promissory estoppel” and a contact lens that goes missing.
So *SPOILER ALERT* stop here if you want to read the full transcripts complete with the judge’s ruling at the end. Or keep reading for the abridged, not-quite-so-funny version complete with spoilers.
The story begins in December 2012 when Mary listed the Miami condo, held by the Shechtman Family Trust, for sale at a price of $1.35 million and instructed her real estate agent, Sean Joseph, that she wouldn’t take less that $1.3 million for the 38th floor unit with spectacular ocean views. In February 2013, the plaintiffs, Joanne and Vivian Katsantonis, made various offers and responded to counter-offers, eventually agreeing to the $1.3 million price tag.
“So why are we here?” asked Christopher Harris, the Katsantonis’s lawyer, during opening statements. “The evidence will show that about the same time the plaintiffs accepted the defendants’ counteroffer, two other units in the same tower and in the same line were listed for sale, one for $1.7 million and the other for $1.65 million.
The evidence will show then that on February 8, 2013, the day after the defendants had already returned the fully executed counteroffer and wired into escrow the initial deposit, the defendants began to disavow the contract. Specifically, the sellers' agent claimed, for the first time ever, that as a requirement of the trust — and mind you, they have never provided a copy of the Trust Agreement until after the lawsuit was filed — both of the defendants were physically required to execute the contract in order to have a binding agreement.”
By the time the trial rolled around a year later, both Sean Joseph’s and Mary Shechtman’s reason for invalidating the deal had evolved. The pair contradicted testimony given in earlier sworn depostions and claimed that Shechtman had never given Joseph permission to sell the condo, meaning that he had essentially gone rogue.
“Mr. Joseph conceded that he had given false testimony in his deposition under oath,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer Harris in his closing arguments. “[Shechtman] tried to recant her deposition testimony on the claim that she had been confused at deposition.”
Judge Moreno was not impressed with the change of heart and ruled in favour of the plaintiffs:
I have trouble with Ms. Shechtman’s testimony because of the way it came out and the degree of denial,” he said. “In fact, when I heard Ms. Shechtman say she was shocked about all the offers and counteroffers, I couldn’t help but think of the character, Captain Louis Renault, in Casablanca played by Claude Rains, you know, when there was gambling, when he said, "I'm shocked that there's gambling in this establishment," because obviously, she initiated, she had a relationship, a professional relationship, of course, with Sean Joseph. And it is inconceivable and unreasonable that she had no idea about all of these things.”
For the record, even though it wasn’t played in court, here’s Claude Rains in the famous scene:
Honey Sherman made a better impression on the judge, who found her much more credible than her sister. “She kind of backpedaled a little bit saying, ‘I don't remember,’ but she wasn't so certain during the deposition. And the Court concludes that she takes a more distant participation in this condominium,” Moreno said.
As for Joseph, despite his supposed transgressions, Shechtman testified that she could not bring herself to fire her real estate agent. Months after the botched sale, he was still working on her behalf to lease out the condo. “I'm a wimp,” Shechtman told the court, adding that Joseph had a child and she didn’t want to take away his livelihood. “I admit that it's a failing, I guess, in my personality.”
Nevertheless within the year, Shechtman changed her mind and, together with her sister and the family trust, sued Joseph for negligence, a case that would eventually be dropped after Honey was murdered.
When I called Joseph last month, he told me there was no bad blood between him and Shechtman and that he had been horrified and saddened to hear about the Shermans’ murders. The negligence lawsuit was just business, he said, emphasizing that he had carried on working with Mary, Barry Sherman and Honey, the latter of whom he kept referring to as Debra and Debbie. When I asked him about this, he replied that Debra was Honey’s real name, which is in fact Anna Debra.
Meanwhile in another real estate matter …
Judge Moreno is not the only judge to make a less than flattering assessment of Mary Shectman’s behaviour. In a case brought by the co-op board of a Montreal apartment building where Mary, her husband Allen and her daughter Rebecca, purchased an apartment unit, Quebec Superior Court Judge Stéphane Lacoste reprimanded all three Shechtmans for their conduct.
In his 2020 judgment, Lacoste found that the Shechtmans, and more specifically Mary Shechtman, had harassed the directors of the co-op board and broken assorted municipal bylaws in the course of carrying out unapproved renovations. He also ruled that “the Shechtmans abused their rights and procedures. From the start, in July 2013, until and including the trial, they have acted in bad faith,” the judge wrote in his decision, ordering the Shechtmans to pay more than $100,000 to the co-op board.
Attorney Client Privilege (again)
There’s an amusing moment in Katsantonis et al v. Shechtman et al trial where the judge makes a point about attorney client privilege that needs to be made a lot more often. Mary’s attorney, Alexander Soto, interrupts her cross-examination (see blue section below) only to unexpectedly find himself in the hot seat.
I have never understood why no one involved in the Sherman case ever made the point Judge Moreno did and told the Goodmans lawyers, who handicapped this investigation in a way that may still be having negative effects, to take a hike. The privilege, after all, belonged to Apotex, which was, at the time, owned by the Sherman children. They had every right to waive privilege to enable the police to conduct a proper and timely investigation of their parents’ deaths.
Did the Shermans and Apotex executives like Jack Kay not realize the consequences of Goodmans’ actions? Shouldn’t the police or the Crown Attorneys have pointed this out? Was someone else at Apotex supporting the Goodmans’ position? And if so, who was it and why?
Leave a comment or email me at ann.brocklehurst@gmail.com. And be sure to subscribe to receive the next instalment of Courthouse Stories, which will cover the Shechtman v. Shechtman et al lawsuit
This is excellent!
You're godamn fucking right I chained myself to the CTV Bell's media building. How would you like police coming to your workplace and calling you a PDF ? It's not very nice. Toronto police are shameless liars. Oh and talk about journalistic integrity none of those clowns came out of the building to ask me shit.