If this house could talk… what does Betty Grafstein’s mansion in Sintra hide? – National

“Casa Escadinhas do Visconde De Ouguela is located in the historic city of Sintra, 150 meters from the Castle of the Moors and 600 meters from the Sintra National Palace. This 18th-century home is filled with renovated period pieces and details,” This is how the house of Betty Grafstein and José Castelo Branco was presented, at a time when the socialite advertised the house on a tourism house rental platform, in 2017. At that time, you could stay in the eccentric couple’s house for 90 euros for 2 people, with the daily rate reaching up to 130 euros per person. Other times.

The property was acquired by the jeweler, paid in cash, in 1972, when she was still married to her previous husband, Albert Grafstein, who died in 1991. It is a manor house in São Pedro de Sintra, on the way to the historic area of UNESCO World Heritage villa, with several floors, a courtyard, and which was valued at 1.5 million euros – once again, and with the real estate crisis, the property will currently have a substantially higher value.

The sumptuous parties

In the 1990s and early 2000s, José Castelo Branco and Betty Grafstein hosted many of the national social celebrities in this house at lavish parties that marked the end of summer. Parties are always very popular and widely publicized in the press. In the description of one of these parties, which normally took place in August, ‘Visão’ describes it as having been decorated by Pedro Ramos e Ramos, dinner for one hundred people, prepared by Danny Dagher, chief cook at the Sheraton Hotel, at the time. , and fados sung by Alexandra and Paula Varela Cid. On the decoration alone, the couple spent 600,000 escudos in old currency, which today is equivalent to around €4,400. The price of catering was kept among the house’s secrets.

But the house also has a darker side. On Monday, May 6, under the condition of anonymity, a former employee of José Castelo Branco and Betty Grafstein who worked at the Sintra house alleged that the art dealer treated and called employees slaves. Speaking to TVI’s ‘Jornal Nacional’, the man said that he ended up resigning due to non-payment of wages and pointed out that there is “a debt of thousands of euros”.

Mistreatment of employees and alleged assaults on Betty

The same former employee also assured TVI that he witnessed attacks by Castelo Branco on Lady Betty. “I was painting her in the bathroom and I saw him slap her because she wouldn’t stay still. Betty was a doll in your hands. I arrived and saw that the lady’s face was all red and she I was full of tears”, reported the man.

Over the years, several complaints from José Castelo Branco employees have been made public. In 2014, A former employee of the art dealer accused her former boss of starvation, aggression and unpaid wages, from when she worked for José Castelo Branco for three months in 2001. Misé, his name, worked at the socialite’s house in Sintra, accompanying him on a trip to the United States.

In statements to the press, the former employee left very serious accusations: “he got upset, he grabbed my neck and wanted to drink me, but a man from Chanel was there who laid hands on him. I don’t forgive him (…) if it hadn’t been for the other man, he would have beaten me “described at the time.

Tax fraud and other debts

And then there are the messes involving the famous house in Sintra. Exactly one year ago, TV Guia magazine revealed the story, proven by official documentation, that José Castelo Branco had not paid his wife’s tax obligations in Portugal, namely several IMIs relating to her property in Sintra, and that these failures threw the North American millionaire onto the list of debtors of up to 25 thousand euros on the Tax Authority (AT) website.

At the time, Castelo Branco accused Pedro Pico, the tenant of the house in Sintra, of being responsible for the black mark on Betty’s name, and was once again devaluing the debts. The transformer Pedro Pico, who rented Lady Betty Grafstein’s mansion in Sintra for 2,200 euros a month – and who José Castelo Branco, the husband of the American jeweler, accuses of not paying the rent – came to expose everything in a video where, in addition After seeing himself being attacked by the husband of the owner of the house, he makes several serious accusations against the Portuguese socialite.

“I’m going to show you the contract and all the proof of transfer of all the rent that has been paid to date, I paid 35 rents and only received one rent receipt. (…) I want to say that this house has three mortgages, worth of 700,000 euros and I pay these mortgages”, Pedro Pico further denounced.

In the GNR dungeons

However, José Castelo Branco was arrested this Tuesday morning, 7th, after being accused of domestic violence against Betty Grafstein. José Castelo Branco is expected to spend the night at the Alcabideche GNR, after two hours at the Sintra Court, and is expected to appear before the judge tomorrow, Wednesday, after the due diligence scheduled for this Tuesday was postponed due to the workers’ strike. judicial officials.

Meanwhile, Betty Grafstein remains in intensive care, in a private hospital in Cascais, where she was admitted after a fall, allegedly, and denounced by the socialite, as a result of a push from her husband, which caused the fracture of her femur. The businesswoman’s condition worsened, first with pneumonia, then with pulmonary edema, and she was in a critical condition.