Steve Mnuchin’s socialite sister sues potential buyers of her $8M pad

The socialite sister of US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is suing two potential buyers of her Park Avenue penthouse for a near $1 million deposit after she claims they tanked the deal, new court papers show.

Valerie Mnuchin — who bought the 898 Park Ave penthouse in 2014, according to a Real Deal report — claims that Michael Shaoul and Nirit Weiss had been trying to close on the pad but the pair tried to “exploit the Covid-19 health crisis as an opportunity to renegotiate the contract price,” among other “bad faith” moves that caused the co-op board to reject the deal, a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit alleges.

The Upper East Side unit — which boasts three floors and 4,100 square feet, according to a 6sqft report — was slated to sell to the couple for $8 million under a Feb. 4 contract of sale agreement, the court papers say.

But Shaoul and Weiss allegedly tried to use the pandemic to knock $1 million off the sale price, “calling into question the financial stability of the cooperative” and asking for the financials from 11 of the co-op’s shareholders, the court documents say.

The “highly unusual” request “was met with disdain” from the co-op board members who on March 26 rejected the proposed sale, for this and other reasons including that the couple claimed to have lost some of their net worth without providing documentation, the suit says.

Now Mnuchin is seeking an $800,000 deposit, claiming that the pair is in default.

An attorney for Shaoul and Weiss said the “assertions by the sister of US Treasury Secretary are entirely baseless.”