IN RE: Jerome M. WEINRAUB (2009)

Decree, Surrogate's Court, New York County (Renee R. Roth, S.), entered on or about February 25, 2008, which, to the extent appealed from, as limited by the briefs, granted the motion of the co-trustee, Jerome M. Weinraub, to remove S. Sidney Mandel, Esq. as trustee of the captioned trust pursuant to SCPA 719, unanimously affirmed, with costs.

The Surrogate's Court providently exercised its discretion in removing appellant as trustee of the captioned trust (see SCPA 719[1], [3], [10]; 711 [3], [8], [12]; Matter of Duke, 87 N.Y.2d 465, 472-473, 640 N.Y.S.2d 446, 663 N.E.2d 602 [1996] ). The appellant failed to account over many years, despite repeated requests by a co-trustee and beneficiary and a court order compelling him to do so by a date certain. In a parallel proceeding in Westchester County, the appellant, who is an attorney, was removed as trustee of the same decedent's testamentary trusts after he not only failed to purge a contempt order by providing accountings, but then failed to appear for the subsequent removal hearing and left the jurisdiction despite a warrant of commitment being issued by the Surrogate's Court of that County (2008 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 4366, affd. 66 A.D.3d 691, 885 N.Y.S.2d 643 [2009] ). Under these circumstances, his removal as co-trustee by the Surrogate of New York County was warranted (see Flaum v. Birnbaum, 191 A.D.2d 227, 594 N.Y.S.2d 247 [1993] ); (In re Estate of Britton, 173 Misc.2d 300, 303, 661 N.Y.S.2d 911 [1997] ).

We have considered the appellant's remaining contentions and find them unavailing.