Millionaire shipping exec sues wife and father-in-law over hit plot
Oleg Mitnik filed the $20million lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court
A millionaire shipping executive has sued his estranged wife and father-in-law, claiming they were behind a plot to hire a notorious mobster to kill him.
Oleg Mitnik filed the $20million lawsuit against his socialite wife Ronit Mitnik and father-in-law Anatoly Potik in Manhattan Supreme Court, claiming emotional distress and defamation.
Mitnik was the target of a hit-turned-extortion in 2015, when one-time Russian mafioso Boris Nayfeld, now 70, told him a contract had been taken out on his life.
Mitnik negotiated with Nayfeld, who said he'd been paid $100,000 for the assassination, by agreeing to pay that amount plus an additional $25,000 sweetener.
Now the shipping magnate says he's still looking over his shoulder, and that the suit and publicity on his case could save him from another attempt on his life.
'The man who was supposed to kill me is out after 16 or 17 months, and the guy who ordered my murder, he's walking free. So that's justice,' Mitnik told the New York Post.
Oleg Mitnik claims wife Ronit Mitnik and father-in-law Anatoly Potik (pictured) went in on a hitman who later extorted $125,000 from him to call off the assasination
Russian mobster Boris Nayfeld, 70, admitted to his role in the plot and is out on probation now
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Share'He's a very dangerous man. Somebody who smiles in your face and stabs you in the back,' Oleg Mitnik said. 'Every time I walk out of my building, I have to look left and right, and take different exits and take different roads.'
Mitnik alleges that Ronit and her dad Potik were after his $7million life insurance.
The couple were also in the midst of a messy divorce fight, battling over custody of their teenage children and Mitnik's fortune, including $9million in property holdings, with a tony Upper East Side apartment and vacation home on Long Island.
Once upon a time the pair, along with their children, were regulars on the Hamptons social scene, before their marriage unraveled.
Mitnik runs TRT International, a freight-shipping company in Newark.
Aging mobster Nayfeld admitted his role and served two years in prison, but the feds dropped charges against Potik.
Mitnik believes the feds let Potik walk in exchange for information that assisted with other cases.
'They basically sold me out for cases. I think it sends the wrong message,' Oleg Mitnik said of federal prosecutors.
Mitnik alleges that Ronit (left and right) and her dad were after his $7million life insurance
The couple were also in the midst of a messy divorce fight, battling over custody of their teenage children and Mitnik's fortune, including this vacation home on Long Island
Mitnik also owns an apartment in this Upper East Side building. 'Every time I walk out of my building, I have to look left and right, and take different exits and take different roads,' he said
The same may have happened with Nayfeld, whom Judge Katherine Forrest gave a lighter sentence with 'some discomfort' based on the government's recommendation, according to a transcript of the proceeding.
Nayfeld was dubbed an 'organizer, enforcer and narcotics distributor' for the Russian mafia in a 1997 US Customs intelligence report.
Prosecutors claimed the 'hit' was actually an extortion attempt, with Nayfeld leaning on his fearsome reputation to squeeze money from Mitnik.
Nayfeld was freed on bail in October, and complained that the terms of his probation wouldn't let him return to Russia in an interview with the Associated Press.
'I lost everything,' Nayfeld grumbled. 'I lost job, I lost my time for stay in prison. I lost my wife. This is enough punish for me.'
Oleg Mitnik is currently embroiled in a nasty divorce battle with his wife, Ronit Mitnik (pictured), which included custody of the couple's two teenage children
Mitnik claims in the new suit that Potik and Ronit have been spreading rumors that he framed Potik by cooking up false allegations of a murder plot and by paying off federal agents.
'I think it will clear my name,' Oleg Mitnik told the Post. 'I think it's important for justice to be served at least at some angle.'
Ronit Mitnik's lawyer, Robert Wallack, told the newspaper that the allegations were 'total fiction' and 'utter garbage.'
Meanwhile, says Oleg Mitnik: 'I am terrified.'
'He's a very dangerous man,' Mitnik said of father-in-law Potik. 'Somebody who smiles in your face and stabs you in the back.'
'Every time I walk out of my building, I have to look left and right, and take different exits and take different roads.'
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