Hedge-funder? Try cad. And layabout sponge.
The glamorous Ukrainian-born personal assistant accused of swiping $900,000 from Nicky Hilton’s ex-hubby has taken off the gloves in hope of dodging a threatened prison sentence — calling her alleged victim a bogus moneyman who lives off his parents and hired her only to be his mistress.
Todd Meister — infamous for his six-week marriage to Paris Hilton’s younger sister, Nicky, in 2004 — may think himself a hedge-funder, but in the 10 months she worked for him last year the only affairs he managed involved women, accused embezzler Renata Shamrakova says in vitriolic court papers.
“Todd Meister was not actively managing a hedge fund, and aside from money directed to him by members of his family, he conducted virtually no hedge-fund business whatsoever during this time period,” Shamrakova snipes.
Meister has denied he ever had a romantic relationship with Shamrakova. He has also insisted that he is a legitimate, Harvard-trained financier who, as co-founder of the Pride Rock Management hedge fund, helped manage $2 billion in investments.
But if he was such a big-deal cash jockey, how could he fail to have reviewed his credit-card bills during the 10 consecutive months she was charging them up, Shamrakova asks in her papers.
“It is patently implausible that a successful, experienced hedge-fund manager, of the type Meister portrayed himself to be to the district attorney and to other sources, would have his company’s finances be in this state of disrepair and inattention,” she snarks in her papers.
Make Meister turn over all his so-called “business” e-mails, Shamrakova asked Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Lewis Bart Stone, who is presiding over her 44-count grand-larceny indictment.
“These e-mails would demonstrate that he misrepresented the nature of his business and the nature of Shamrakova’s employment, to the district attorney,” her lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, wrote the judge.
Manhattan prosecutors vigorously fought Shamrakova’s bid for such an e-mail fishing expedition, saying it would be a baseless intrusion into Meister’s personal and professional life.
The judge agreed.
Despite the bad news, Shamrakova left court with a smile for the news photographers.
Asked if she still insists that she was hired to be Meister’s mistress — and that the $900,000 she’s accused of charging on his credit cards were “gifts” — she answered, “Absolutely.”
Prosecutors say she took out two American Express cards — one platinum, one gold — in Meister’s name and ran the cards up by traveling to Aruba, Canada, India, Italy and France and buying thousands of pieces of jewelry and other luxury goods she would sell online.
To pay off the cards, she would then sneakily write checks off Meister’s JPMorgan account, the DA alleges.
Shamrakova is countering that, six weeks into the job, she started a romantic relationship with Meister and that her alleged lootings were actually gifts given on the QT.
Prosecutors say, in turn, that Shamrakova is welcome to come in to the DA’s office and substantiate her claim.
“We had repeatedly offered the defendant an opportunity to provide information about the purported relationship had with the victim and to provide any information, witnesses or evidence she had relating this relationship,” assistant district attorney Cory Jacobs wrote in his own papers.
“To date, the defendant has opted not to meet with the District Attorney’s office or provide any additional information in this regard,” he wrote.
“The offer remains open, but any possible meeting must happen in the very short future.”
litaliano@nypost.com
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