Metro

Real-estate broker charges Warhol favorite ‘Baby Jane’ Holzer scammed her on $720K commission

CLASH: “Baby Jane” Holzer (right, on camera in 1964, and center, recently) faces a lawsuit by Joanna Cutler (below right).

CLASH: “Baby Jane” Holzer (below left, on camera in 1964, and above, recently) faces a lawsuit by Joanna Cutler (below right). (
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Whatever happened to Baby Jane? She scammed a real-estate broker-to-the-stars out of a fat commission on the sale of a $16 million Upper East Side triplex, a new lawsuit claims.

Manhattan broker Joanna Cutler filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court yesterday against former Andy Warhol protégée “Baby Jane” Holzer and her partner, Lance Valdez, claiming the duo iced her out of a $720,000 commission.

Cutler — who brags on her Web site about dining with celebrity pals Jennifer Aniston and Lisa Marie — said she and Alf Naman Real Estate had an exclusive listing with the owners to broker a sale.

Cutler showed the posh, four-bedroom pad at 10 E. 63rd St. to the socialite Holzer, 72, and her since-deceased partner Valdez, numerous times, the suit charged.

And by November 2007, “Holzer entered into an oral agreement with the property owner to purchase the property in her own name for $16 million,” according to the lawsuit, filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court.

“Cutler was instrumental in procuring the transaction and in assisting Ms. Holzer and her attorneys in the negotiation of the terms of the contract,” the suit said.

But the seller, Valdez and Holzer “began to devise a scheme to avoid payment of a brokerage commission” to lower the purchase price, the suit said.

And they also allegedly delayed the transaction until the exclusive listing agreement with Naman and Cutler expired, claims the suit, which seeks the $720,000 plus interest and various expenses.

Holzer, now an art collector and real estate investor, was a Palm Beach real-estate heiress who became a Warhol favorite in the 1960s and 1970s.

Neither Holzer nor her lawyer returned calls seeking comment. Cutler’s lawyer declined comment.

Valdez died last year in a helicopter crash in the Bahamas with Miami billionaire Jeffrey Soffer, who survived and is now engaged to ex-supermodel Elle Macpherson.

Additional reporting by Bob Fredericks