SEATTLE (AP) — Hundreds of items formerly owned by missing Seattle real estate developer Michael Mastro have been sold at auction.
Terry Moore, a spokesman with the James G. Murphy auction company, says 56 designer handbags sold for up to $900 apiece, a baby grand piano sold for $17,000 and a Dale Chihuly chandelier sold for $35,000. The big ticket item was a 2007 Bentley convertible that went for $92,500. The auction was held in Palm Desert, Calif., where Mastro recently lived.
The money raised is a long way from paying off Mastro’s creditors, who are owed about $325 million in his bankruptcy case.
Mastro was forced into bankruptcy in 2009 after the market crashed. The 86-year-old vanished with his wife, Linda, last summer after they failed to comply with a court order to turn over diamond rings worth $1.4 million. Warrants have been issued for their arrest.
