Louise Meanwell
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Larceny, extortion, harassment — and now bank robbery?
As Manhattan prosecutors argued this week against bail for Louise Meanwell, the accused extorter of Yankee GM Brian Cashman, they were also ransacking the New Jersey home of her Citibank-exec mom — looking for evidence of a “bank robbery.”
Jersey cops were to seize from mom Caroline Meanwell’s Annandale residence anything “of evidentiary value which might be used to aid and assist an individual(s) in the planning and/or commission of a robbery, specifically a bank robbery,” according to the search warrant executed Tuesday afternoon.
Louise Meanwell, 35, has been jailed for five months, unable to post a $300,000 bond on a 52-count indictment alleging she is a serial harasser who extorted $6,000 from the married Cashman by threatening to go public with their affair.
But two sources with knowledge of the investigation say officials have recordings of the daughter threatening to get her mom in trouble with Citibank officials over some kind of alleged illegal activity.
“There’s evidence of a history, of threats and extortive behavior against her mother,” prosecutor Eric Iverson told a judge Tuesday during a bail hearing.
The mom on Tuesday posted a bail bond, but prosecutors are questioning whether she did so out of love and free will — as she insists — or as the result of alleged extortion.
Caroline, 55, is a former London-based Citibank vice president who now works out of New Jersey and lives with her boyfriend, Larry Gruss, 58.
Jersey cops left her home Tuesday with Caroline’s computer and printer, along with an envelope containing “Louise Meanwell court papers,” according to a court document.
Meanwell family lawyer Peter Gleason derided the search.
“It shocks the conscience that a law-enforcement officer under the auspices of investigating a fictitious bank robbery would use the occasion to pilfer privileged legal documents,” he said.
Added Louise’s lawyer, Lawrence LaBrew, “Basically, they want to keep her in jail, and the search warrant was a sham to get information to possibly support their argument on the bail denial.”