]May 18, 1908[citation needed] – January 27, 1955) was a stock and currency manipulator, a playboy, Café society denizen, convicted draft-evader and unsolved murder victim.
One of its directors, Martin Coles Harman, was convicted of misappropriating funds from the company and its stock price fell.
He claimed that he was the sole support for seven dependents, with only a relatively low income (he had married in 1941 to Laurette Kilbourne and they had two children, Alexandria and Dianna).
After the divorce and his release from prison Rubinstein became noted for his social life, being seen with numerous women at fancy nightclubs.
The United States government had previously initiated deportation hearings for Rubinstein, as he had illegally entered the country with a forged Portuguese passport.
Rubinstein was also sued by his sister-in-law in 1951, claiming that he cheated his late brother Andre out of $1.5 million in the Chosen Corporation swindle, but she lost the suit.
[2] In the early morning of January 27, 1955, Rubinstein returned from a dinner at Nino's La Rue supper club with Estelle Gardner to his six-story Fifth Avenue mansion.
At 8:30 am, Rubinstein's butler, William Morter, found the body dressed in silk pajamas in the third floor bedroom.
Rubinstein's hands and feet were tied with venetian blind cords and his mouth was covered with adhesive tape.
Rubinstein's mother and an aunt lived at the home on the top floors and claimed that they had seen a mysterious "girl [dressed] in brown" on the stairway at about 1 am after hearing quarreling.
[8] A theory denounced by an English investigator, Sir Perey Sillitoe, acting on behalf of the diamond trust, would have revealed to the American authorities that Serge Rubinstein had embezzled a large stock of diamonds purchased with the Russian government's money and part of its capital.
For these reasons, two Russian agents were reportedly tasked with liquidating him At his funeral, rabbi Dr. Julius Mark of Temple Emanu-El made this assessment of Rubinstein's life: The word 'paradox' best describes the strangely complex, ambiguous and unquestioned psychopathic personality of Serge Rubinstein.
[12] The 1956 film Death of a Scoundrel, starring George Sanders, Yvonne DeCarlo, and Zsa-Zsa Gabor, was loosely based on Rubinstein's life.