Tabber takes aim (Getty Images)

Updated after the jump

Last week, The New York Post came out with an incendiary item about the high-flying socialite (and New York Observer Gatsbaby) Tabber Benedict, who had allegedly thrown himself a "going-away" party at Number 8 on the night before he was actually due to be sentenced in court for his 2011 DUI.

But according to the gossip site Scallywag & Vagabond, the attack might have been more personal than just a good tip from Justin Ross Lee...and that the Post's author, Tara Palmeri, had it out for Mr. Benedict for another reason.

From S&V:

According to Benedict, he first met Palmeri when she was seated in his chair at Blue Horizon’s June 2012 Charity Gala. Benedict, who was a committee member for the charity, asked Palmeri to kindly get out of his seat, as cocktail hour concluded and dinner was about to be served – unaware that this request sent Palmeri running out of the gala, distraught and embarrassed.

It seems Palmeri had crashed the benefit (?) and sat in an empty chair, not realizing it was assigned to Benedict. Justin Ross Lee, a friend to both Benedict and Palmeri, later told Benedict that he had upset Palmeri. (Interestingly, Lee is the only person other than the victim who is quoted in Palmeri’s NY Post article. Is he the anonymous source mouthing off that Benedict was off to Europe for a long holiday? )

The sourcing for this pro-Benedict story is obviously the jailed attorney himself, who even gave up an old email where he apologized to Palmeri for taking his seat. (Which in itself smacks of incestuous obligations: Why else would a socialite bother with a long apology to a New York Post writer, if the writer was obviously in the wrong?)

Mr. Lee, who has never met a publication he wouldn't like to give a quote to, is accused of colluding with Ms. Palmeri for her hit piece on Benedict. He openly admitted his intentions on bringing his former friend down to Scalleywag:

Anonymous: “Did you quote that to the Post?”

Justin: “Did he tip them off last year to my Chapter 7 filing… He was a snake to me. You bet your ass that’s my quote.”

Anonymous: “I didn’t know that.”

Justin: “Nor did I until about 3 weeks ago. What he did was unspeakable. The ultimate betrayal after I confided in him. He should thank me for being so kind when they asked for my comment.”

Anonymous: “How did you know he said it? The Post told you? It’s public record when you file.”

Justin: “I’m well aware it’s public…a little birdy told me.”

Benedict also insinuated that Lee wasn't even at the party, by letting it slip that he had black-listed his former buddy from the door list. But even if Benedict could prove that Palmeri and Lee worked together to besmirch his good name, there's still the tiny matter of the story itself--where Benedict held a party on the night before he went to court--being true. Of course, Benedict/Scallywag claim that the anonymous quotes from the Post article are all fake or were made up by Lee, and point to the fact that Palmeri messed up the name of the nightclub and called in Bungalow 8 instead of Number 8 to prove that the party in question never existed. (Which, to be fair, we've also confused several times.) The party in question, according to Mr. Benedict, was a benefit his friend had previously asked him to lend his good name for.

What are we to take away from this story? Well, not much, except that Benedict must have a pretty nice setup at Suffolk County Correctional Facility...one with a pretty incredible WiFi situation and a lot of free time to peruse old emails about seating arrangements.

Update: Justin Ross Lee responded to The Observer regarding the Scallywag post, saying, "A blogger’s a journalist like Tabber’s a motorist. Those quotes were blogged by a disgruntled felon blogging longhand from a felon from a jail cell to clear whatever’s left of his tarnished name."

"Tabber’s action reflect poorly on the pride of the few remaining Gatsbabies," Mr. Lee said. "He should stop worrying about playing publicist and start reflecting on why he’s in prison."

Tabber Benedict, the Sherman McCoy of our time. (Patrick McMullan)

Tabber Benedict, one of The New York Observer’s "Gatsbabies," who almost killed a man during a drunk driving incident in the Hamptons two years ago, is taking his upcoming prison term in stride. The night before he was to be handed down a sentence of up to 10 years in prison for plowing his GMC Acadia into a 45-year-old teacher named Steven Dorn in 2011, Mr. Benedict threw himself a party at Bungalow 8 (or whatever we're calling it now. Number 8? The former Bungalow 8?).

He told friends that the party was in honor of his upcoming departure ... for Europe.

A ridiculous way to save face in the off chance any of his friends read the news, the 35-year-old finance lawyer threw a bash on January 24, where he spun tales of the exotic travels for which he'd soon be departing, the Post reported today. He was given the space for free because he knew someone who ran the door. (Obviously.)

And yet ... the 150 or so attendees were "shocked" to discover that the following morning, Mr. Benedict was not setting sail for Venice, but was sitting in court, apologizing to the man he hit while drunk and awaiting the judge's sentence. Well, one person wasn't taken totally off-guard. Gatsbaby and frenemy Justin Ross Lee told the paper: "I feel terrible for Tabber because I know there's no table service where he's headed. He's the most the pretentious person I ever met."

Then again, that might be a compliment coming from Mr. Lee, who runs the handkerchief line Pretentious Pocket. We just hope Benedict's jumpsuit has a breast pocket.

Mr. Benedict, a 35-year-old attorney who runs his own fledgling law practice, is facing charges of aggravated vehicular assault, leaving the scene of the accident, and driving while intoxicated for the 2011 Fourth of July accident in which he is accused of hitting a bicyclist while driving a 2011 GMC Acadia on the Montauk Highway.

Mr. Benedict did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.

On July 4th of last year, Southampton lifeguard and teacher Steve Dorn was biking on the Montauk Highway near East Quogue at 8 in the morning when he was hit by a black 2011 GMC Acadia being driven by Mr. Benedict, according to local prosecutors and published reports.

Mr. Benedict then hit another car and drove for two miles before being stopped by two motorists who witnessed the accident and used their vehicles to block him, prosecutors said.

Mr. Dorn, 44, was admitted to Brookhaven Memorial Hospital in critical condition at the time of the accident. He would eventually be released from the hospital.

Mr. Benedict eventually pleaded not guilty to felony charges of aggravated vehicular assault and leaving the scene of an accident. He also pleaded not guilty to charges of DWI, a misdemeanor, and reckless driving, a traffic violation.

He was released on $75,000 bail.

Calls and an email to Robert Clifford, a spokesman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, were not immediately returned.

Mr. Benedict faces the risk of losing his NY State Bar license if convicted, said Mark Heller, his attorney.

"A reasonable resolution to this case is not a felony disposition, but a misdemeanor disposition," Mr. Heller told The Observer. 

He went on to clarify Mr. Benedict's recent involvement with local charities, including co-hosting the First Annual Post-Walk Celebration to Benefit Breast Cancer Victims.

"In my 43 years of practice, I have never met a more appropriate individual I've been called on to represent than Tabber Benedict," said Mr. Heller. "He is very, very contrite about what happened, he is very remorseful, he's been been remarkably sensitive and compassionate about the individual [Mr. Dorn] who was impacted by this unfortunate occurrence."

Mr. Benedict was among the three "Gatsbabies" featured in Wednesday's New York Observer story, in which the three preening prepsters —noted for their flamboyant attire and their emerging presence in social media and the New York social scene—lured "ladies, lucre and the limelight" in Manhattan.

Mr. Benedict, along with globetrotting "retired entrepreneur" Edward Scott Brady and Pretentious Pocket founder and social gadfly Justin Ross Lee, had all come to evoke (be it intentional or not) the grandiosity and mystery of F. Scott Fitzgerald's titular character from "The Great Gatsby."

[Read Meet the Gatsbabies.]

For Mr. Benedict, who grew up the child of a single mom in Upstate New York and worked his way through a college scholarship and law school, his background seemed as self-made and sedulous as Jay Gatz himself. His foppish, bespoke attire and slicked-back hair gave him an air of a Jazz Age gentleman (while casual gawkers wrote him off as a Scott Disick lookalike). Of course, Jay Gatsby owed his fortune to a bootlegging business while concocting a biography that disguised his modest origins.

Mr. Benedict has been a staple on the charity circuit in recent months, often appearing in Patrick McMullan party pictures, smiling as his left hand remained firmly in his pocket (his left arm is gammy, the result of a car accident he was in as a child).

It is not clear if Mr.Benedict faces any prison time if convicted.

drosen@observer.com 

At the landing, visibly breathless and sweaty, their eyes lit up. They had entered the penthouse loft of Edward Scott Brady, the boyishly handsome world traveler, former classical cello virtuoso and “retired entrepreneur,” who was throwing a “Welcome Back Bash” to honor his return from his seventh trip around the globe.

(Jason Seiler)

Demonstrating a generous spirit, he had posted news of the party to Facebook and Guest of a Guest, luring in hundreds of friends and friends-of-friends, the more the merrier, and plying them with premium booze.

The apartment had all the trappings a wayfaring bachelor requires: the cello, a relic from Mr. Brady’s days playing at the Kennedy Center and Avery Fisher Hall; the African ceremonial masks, collected on his jaunts to the subcontinent; the large antique globe; the red-felt billiards table; the framed photos of Mr. Brady from his journeys.

It was, in the estimation of one female guest, “shit-tastic.”

“He’s, like, famous dude,” said Dmitry Astafev, a Russian entrepreneur who learned about the party through his girlfriend, who had been forwarded a Facebook invite and actually didn’t know Mr. Brady, either.

No matter. Sooner or later, it is safe to say, we will all know Mr. Brady.

“My boyfriend met him in the Hamptons,” said a blond-haired woman in her early 20s.

“I met him at Cyril’s,” claimed another woman.

The place was packed with bros in suit-coats and more babes in slinkier-than-thou dresses, in the appraisal of Justin Ross Lee, than one could shake a stick at.

“Unfortunately for these ladies, I’ve already shaken my stick at most of them,” he added with a wink.

Mr. Lee is an entrepreneur and shameless self-promoter, whose reputation, like Mr. Brady’s, preceded him.The day before, he had been the subject of of a comical New York Times Styles Section profile that depicted him, among other things, tussling with a doorman at The Dream Downtown and bragging about his first-class travels to the Middle East and Europe (“Jew Jetting,” as he proudly refers to it on his Facebook page). Mr. Lee hadn’t made Mr. Brady’s acquaintance either—not yet—though their meeting seemed preordained.

“Unlike me, Edward seems to be very well-liked and a lot less controversial, which means he sleeps better at night than I do,” Mr. Lee quipped.

Then Mr. Lee went over to greet Tabber Benedict, a slick-haired attorney whose khaki suit and classic looks gave him the appearance of an attendee at a convention of Patrick Bateman impersonators. If you squinted, he even resembled a clean shaven Clark Gable, or a more avuncular upgrade of reality TV-rake Scott Disick.

Edward Scott Brady (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

As the two stopped to pose for a Guest of a Guest photographer, people in the crowd discussed the size of Mr. Brady’s loft. “This loft is, like, biggest loft in New York City,” said the impressionable Mr. Astafev.

Still, was one loft—whatever its size—big enough for all three men, for their grandiose personalities? The presence of the trio, all in one place, seemed to signal a small if meaningful shift in the city’s cultural history: After a long, dire post-Lehman cold snap, during which ostentatious displays of wealth, social bravado and dandyish fashion gambits were put into deep hibernation, something was stirring. Wall Street was no longer occupied. The impassioned battle cries of the stringy-haired sleeping-bag brigade, fulminating about the ample chasm separating the 99 and 1 percents, had faded. A socially ambitious lad no longer had to hide his Cartier cufflinks or Stubbs & Wootton slippers under a bushel. Suddenly it was okay again to venture into the limelight, okay to aspire to notoriety and social prominence.

Not everyone was ready to put it all out there, of course, but this was the vanguard. Call them the Gatsbabies: three dandyish gentlemen—but straight, mind you, very, very straight—who seemed to come out of nowhere. In this, they were not unlike the former James Gatz himself, on whom they unconsciously styled themselves, the emperor of West Egg, the subject of a million high school book reports and any minute now, a glistening slice of Oscar bait starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Baz Luhrmann.

“They’re products of the zeitgeist right now, and that zeitgeist is one of social media and ability to be your own kind of publicist,” said Rachelle Hruska, the founder of Guest of a Guest, which has helped cultivate the personas of both Mr. Lee and Mr. Brady.

“I think never before have people been able to kind of be their own publicist,” she added. “You can just get a Facebook page and just put basically anything you want on it about yourself all day long, and I think that’s what these three people excel at, is using social media to pump up their brand.”
Photographer Patrick McMullan agreed. “They want to be known, they want to be out there, they want to use their profiles to get more work and more girls,” he said, “and more fun.”
Mr. Brady stood amid the throng, holding a magnum of Cristal in each hand, his long hair slicked-back and his dark tailored suit hugging his athletic form. He greeted his female guests with a kiss on the cheek, often pausing to give a Guest of a Guest photographer a cocksure smirk as the ladies struck poses with him.

Like Gatsby, he seemed a little too good to be true. The open bar and free canapes for his hundreds of guests? The National Geographic-quality photographs? The crowd of beautiful and seemingly available women? Surely there was more to this guy than met the eye—or less. We turned to Mr. Benedict and asked if the scene was real or illusion.

“Being in the industry that you’re in, you of all people should understand,” he said. “Perception becomes reality.”

Tabber Benedict (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

A few days after the party, The Observer received a terse text from Mr. Brady asking us to call him. We had been reaching out to those who RSVP’d for his party, asking how they knew him, and word had come back to him that we were snooping around. In a faltering, nervous tone, he said he was caught off guard by it.

We explained to him that this was just simple reporting. We were doing our due diligence.

“I guess I have to get comfortable with what this media thing is,” he said with a sigh.

We found his response curious, given his highly visible activities. We had seen snaps of him surrounded by a gang of Indian women in their native country, shooting the breeze with the Hmong on the China-Vietnam border, posing casually with a cheetah somewhere in the African Sahara. Downtown Magazine dubbed him “The Most Interesting Man in The World.” His life was like a Tina-era issue of Vanity Fair. Why so shy all of the sudden?

The son of Edward Alden Brady, a former ship captain and Chevron salesman, he was raised in the Larchmont section of Westchester. They shared a name—Mr. Brady goes by “Scott” to help differentiate himself—and a talent for the cello. They also shared a wanderlust: the elder Mr. Brady traveled extensively for work (“He’s been around the world on a boat four times,” the son recalled).

Mr. Brady’s talent for the cello landed him at Oberlin College’s Conservatory of Music, where he studied under Norman Fischer, a noted classical music teacher. The brawny Mr. Brady said he also played on the hockey team, eventually bowing out to protect his hands from potential injury.
When Mr. Fischer left Oberlin for a new position at Rice University in Texas, Mr. Brady followed him there and received the Fondren scholarship, earning his degree in in 1995.

At 25, he was awarded the 1998 Panasonic National Young Performers prize. At 27, he became one of the first Americans ever invited to a residency with a Russian orchestra at the Moscow Symphony. There, Mr. Brady endured 15-hour bus rides, eight-hour practices and a measly diet of canned food and scraps while somehow maintaining his sturdy physique (his fellow students, according to a 2000 Times article, nicknamed him Arnold Schwarzenegger).

The next year he returned to New York and started Musika, a private-music tutoring service that targeted wealthy areas in Westchester County and New Jersey. Musika grew from 15 teachers to 800 nationwide, becoming profitable enough for Mr. Brady to retire at the age of 33. He would not comment on Musika’s annual profits. “I can do pretty much whatever I want at this point,” he said. “I can travel, I’m able to lead the life I want to have.”

On Musika’s website, his biography elaborates on his “World Most Interesting Man” pedigree, noting that he is a member of Mensa, “an organization of people with high-level IQs.” (A spokeswoman for Mensa confirmed that an Edward Brady from New York was a member in 2003–2004, but said that his membership had since lapsed).

After his retirement, Mr. Brady set out to travel the world. His travel itinerary reads like a list of locations for a Bond film: playing polo in Abu Dhabi, surfing in Bocas del Toro, Panama; traveling across Madagascar in an ox-led transport.

The photos of his travels are sweeping and sensational in composition and tone, which has led some to believe that he hired a photographer to document his adventures.

“Everyone’s so curious about who’s taking the photographs,” he told us with a laugh. “I have a tripod, I have a Canon 5d Mark II, and there is a device called the Giga T Pro.” The device, he explained, acts as a remote release that can be activated from a quarter of a mile away. He uses it to capture himself in tender, social moments, like speaking with the female members of the Maasai tribe, which he then posts to his Facebook page.

“That’s why I identify with Scott,” said Mr. Lee, while seated in his Murray Heights office. “There’s no accidental postings. He’s methodical and I’m methodical.”

Perhaps, although that’s not the first term one might apply to Mr. Lee, who likes to say there are three things he never pays for: “parking, publicity and pussy.” His borscht-belt schtick and enormous bravado has brought him infamy (if Page Six still counts), sponsorships, and more publicity for Pretentious Pocket, his line of pocket squares, than might seem reasonable.
The day after his Times profile went online, he claimed he did three months worth of business in one day.

Justin Ross Lee (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

“I mean, I had them working through the Sabbath,” Mr. Lee said, nodding toward a quiet and severe-looking intern who was typing on a MacBook air. “I said, ‘No shul without drool.’”
He admitted that he played up his feud with the doorman at The Dream Downtown to provide some material for Bob Morris, the Times reporter who was following him around for the evening.
“I never would have gone to The Dream Downtown,” he said. “I was going there because I had a New York Times reporter behind me. I set him up and he’s stupid enough to walk right into the lion’s den.” [UPDATE: After this story was published, Mr. Lee wrote to say that he "misspoke and was referring to the stupid doorman," not to Mr. Morris. "Bob is a brilliant writer and journalist whom I respect."]

Such behavior is all part of the schtick. So is the peacockish attire—stylish and garish, in equal measure—guaranteed to draw glances. The Gatsbabies are not particularly concerned with how others see them, as long as they’re being seen.

“People look at me and they’re like, ‘That spoiled prick,’” said Mr. Benedict, a 35-year-old attorney who recently launched his own practice, Benedict Advisors LLC. He didn’t seem too concerned about that. Although there is one oft-made comparison he can’t abide.

“Don’t tell him he looks like Scott Disick. He hates that,” said one female friend. We brought up his resemblance to Clark Gable, and the woman paused. “I don’t know what Clark Gable looks like,” she said flatly.

Mr. Benedict says he has earned his pinstripe C. Oliver Custom Suits. At Mr. Brady’s party, he recalled a hardscrabble childhood in upstate New York, working lousy jobs at grocery stores and McDonald’s throughout high school while being raised by a single mom.

“I literally was using foodstamps,” he said. “Justin never did that. He wore nice Brooks Brothers clothes that his parents bought him, you know what I mean?”

He won a scholarship to Colgate while working in the school library, then went to Columbia Law School and put in time at White & Case and The ACE Group before eventually launching his own firm.

Mr. Benedict was at one time engaged to a woman he met through taxi driving matchmaker Ahmed Ibrahim (their pairing was featured in a 2008 Wall Street Journal article). He said he adopted the name “Thomas Pink,” a pseudonym he uses primarily on Facebook, in the interest of personal safety—to protect him from his now ex-fiancée.

“Girls would post on my [Facebook] wall funny things, and she would take it the wrong way,” he recalled.

There was also the enterprising stalker who broke into his Upper East Side apartment as he was attending a charity event. “She called and said, ‘I’m inside your apartment, Tabber. It’s really nice! My friend Tyrone is here, who has brought me some party favors,’” he said.

Nonetheless, he noted that getting his face out there as much as possible—attending the Seeds of Africa charity event, co-hosting the First Annual Post-Walk Celebration to Benefit Breast Cancer Victims—helps to shore up business.

“You don’t meet people in your bathroom, or like on your sofa, watching Game of Thrones,” he said. “I meet people out, and that’s how I meet my clients.”

Mr. Benedict and Mr. Brady (photo courtesy of Patrick McMullan)

We were at 286 Spring Street for the launch party of TheCityStreet.com, an “exclusive” global directory of bankers founded by former investment banker Vana Koutsomitis. Mr. Benedict did not know Ms. Koutsomitis, but as the party lagged, he pulled her aside and offered to call a photographer from Patrick McMullan’s agency. Within 30 minutes, the photographer arrived, Ms. Koutsomitis happily posed with friends and colleagues, and the vibe picked up considerably.

“He sort of looks like Scott Disick,” Ms. Koutsomitis whispered to us.

The night was a success for Mr. Benedict. He had walked in virtually a stranger, and had left with a few business cards of prospective clients. However, as he has learned, the more public the face, the less understanding the girlfriend.

“The last time I checked, I want my lawyer to be as discreet and dorky and smart as possible, not some philandering playboy,” said Elizabeth Stockton Howard, his blue-blooded, Princeton-educated paramour.

When asked what it’s like dating an internet personality, she replied, “It’s awful! I think about breaking up with him everyday because of that!”

Edward Scott Brady does not have a girlfriend to take issue with his activities. But he blanches at the idea that he is aggressively self-promotional.

“I never think I am actively necessarily promoting myself,” he said, sipping from a beer at the rooftop bar at the James Hotel. “I am just doing what I want to do, and traveling, and that is what I am becoming, and what people see me as. Why am I am traveling around the world? Because I want to do it. I’m not thinking about packaging.”

“Edward Scott doesn’t have the same media focus that Justin does, obviously,” said Mr. Benedict. “That’s Justin’s life. I would of course argue that I have a different focus than Justin, too. My focus is on more of the high-end charity events, because that’s what I care about. Justin does a lot more club parties.”

Differences aside, all three of them owe a debt of gratitude to Scott Fitzgerald’s indelible playboy.
“That was one of my nicknames,” Mr. Brady admitted. “‘Gatsby, what are you doing tonight?’ Especially in the Hamptons.”

“We tickle people’s curiosity,” Mr. Lee said. He’s found that, as it was for Gatsby, a certain air of mystery can be useful. “The first question I get is ‘What do you really do?’” he said. “And that’s how I know I’ve garnished their attention, and that’s how I know it’s a three-pointer.”
drosen@observer.com

Justin Ross Lee at the Emmy's while Gwynth Paltrow looks on adoringly

"I'm living the American dream," socialite and self-proclaimed "Super Jew" Justin Ross Lee tells us after the New York Post ran a story about his bankruptcy filing yesterday. "You can't be anyone in America until you've filed for bankruptcy. Trump, Lorenzo Lamas, Baldwin..they've all filed."

The Post had claimed that Mr. Lee -- who was recently the subject of a Guest of a Guest contest where the winning "shiksa" would accompany him to the Emmys -- was $160,000 in debt and only had $100 in his bank account, despite posing as one of New York's social elites. But Mr. Lee says the story about his bankruptcy has only helped his fledgling business, PretensiousPocket.com. "I've had more orders today than any other day. I never made any claims about how much money I make...but I live a comped lifestyle. I fly first-class around the world."

"I'm happy the Post ran the story," said Mr. Lee, who claims he will be staying in his $$2,700-a-month Murray Hill apartment despite the paper claiming he only had $100 in his bank account and was currently being sued by Citibank for $80,000.

"Oh, and that $100...it's gone. I had to tip my driver on the way home from Emmy after-parties. The only part I was pissed about is that the Post said I was 30-years-old. I'm 28!"

Come and get him, ladies.

At the front gate were two tables with white tablecloths, at which sat women with clipboards letting guests into the sprawling property, where bartenders waited with tequila cosmos.

Once they checked you off, they let you into their palace, where bartenders were waiting to serve tequila cosmos.