He’s been accused of killing their mother — but at least he hasn’t laid a finger on these two young kids’ $1.6 million.
Financial documents submitted by unemployed backgammon whiz Rod Covlin in Westchester Surrogate’s Court yesterday show he hasn’t spent any of the insurance money his murdered wife left their two kids.
Covlin was named guardian of the kids’ payout last June by Judge Anthony Scarpino — but only after Covlin neglected to mention a few pertinent facts in his application to the judge, including that his wife Shele Danishefksy was a murder victim, the NYPD has named him as the prime suspect in her death, and there was already a pending case involving her estate in Manhattan.
After The Post blew the whistle on Covlin’s omissions in December, Scarpino booted him as the guardian of the payout pending a hearing next month, and ordered him to turn in a full accounting of the money by yesterday.
A review of those papers showed the $1.6 million was still there — but David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state court system, said Covlin’s submissions were returned because they “were technically deficient.” Bookstaver refused to elaborate.
A lawyer for Covlin, who lives with his kids at his parents’ home in Scarsdale, did not return a call seeking comment.
While Covlin has not been charged criminally in the case, the New York County Public Administrator sued him on behalf of his late wife’s estate in December, accusing him of causing her wrongful death by strangling her in her Upper West Side apartment on the morning of December 31, 2009.
Her body was discovered in her bathtub with a gash on her head by her then 9-year-old daughter Anna.
Danishefsky was buried without an autopsy, as is traditional for Orthodox Jews in cases where authorities do not suspect foul play. That quickly changed, after authorities learned she had an order of protection against Covlin and an appointment to change her will to exclude her estranged husband on the day after she died.
She was exhumed that March and an autopsy was performed. While the medical examiner ruled her death a homicide, sources told The Post the body was so badly decomposed that it slowed a still-pending probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
Covlin has denied killing her.
In the papers he sent to Scarpino yesterday, Covlin accused his late wife’s brother of possible wrongdoing.
He said he “recently discovered” an Individual Retirement Account of his wife’s that named their kids as beneficiaries, and that it’s “currently the subject of a FINRA [Finacial Industry Regulatory Authority] investigation due to irregularities in the form” that removed him as the beneficiary. He said the financial regulatory agency was investigating “possible fraud, forgery and breach of fiduciary duty” by the brother-in-law, Philip Danishefsky.
A review of FINRA’s Web site shows there’s no record of any pending investigation into Danishefsky or any past one related to his sister’s IRA.
Philip Danishefsky’s lawyer, Marilyn Chinitz of the firm Blank Rome, said, “There is no FINRA investigation. There have been no filings whatsoever except for Mr. Covlin having sent” the broker’s employers “a letter as a desperate, last gasp effort to taint the Danishefskys” with “speculative accusations and no evidence.”
“There was no wrongdoing on the part of Mr. Danishefksy or any other member of the family,” Chinitz said.
dgregorian@nypost.com