A FAMILY TALE OF INFIDELITY, DRUGS, SUICIDE AND CAVIAR

If its roots were not so dark and sad, the family feud over Caviarteria
might best be described as a very fancy food fight. And a very nasty one, too.

Nasty because the combat between Bruce Sobol and his sister-in-law, Brenda
Black Sobol, has stirred up allegations involving infidelity, thievery,
drug abuse and death threats, just to name a few.

Fancy because for five decades, Caviarteria has been a place New Yorkers
with a taste for luxurious food have gone to buy beluga, sevruga, smoked
salmon and other delicacies.

Dark and sad because the fight began after Eric Sobol — Bruce's brother,
Brenda's husband — committed suicide in April 2001.

But to understand the Caviarteria story, you have to go back much further —
if not to the founding of the company by Louis Sobol, Eric and Bruce's
father, then perhaps to 1989, when his sons joined it, according to a
deposition Eric filed in 1999 in a civil court case in Brooklyn.

Despite the hoity-toity nature of the food it sells, the Sobols' company
has always had a real New York attitude. Even today, the countermen at the
store and restaurant in the Hotel Delmonico on East 59th Street wear
baseball caps, and the decor of the place is less that of a shrine to
sturgeon than that of a caviar coffee shop.

It was her husband's goal to popularize caviar, Ms. Black Sobol said. "It
was his concept to bring it to people like us, our age, not just old fogies."

Now 36, Ms. Black Sobol met her husband in 1989, shortly after she had
moved to New York (she is originally from Georgia). They met in a billiard
parlor in Chelsea; Mr. Sobol told her and her girlfriends that as a result
of losing a bet, he had to ask them out for ice cream.

"He was so cute, with his big blue eyes," she recalled. He took them to
Serendipity, bought her a frozen hot chocolate, and she soon decided she
had met her "soul mate." They were married in February 1991.

The next year, Louis Sobol died. His wife, Ruth, and sons took over the
business; though both men were technically vice presidents, Eric described
himself as chief executive, while Bruce was the public face of the company.

The caviar industry was in turmoil. The Soviet Union, which had strictly
controlled the harvest of sturgeon and the export of caviar, had
disintegrated. Poaching and smuggling had become routine.

Eric Sobol began importing much of his caviar from the United Arab Emirates
and Lithuania, where, according to his deposition, he would telephone some
mysterious person named Igor, tell him how much caviar he wanted, and it
would arrive in New York. In the late 1990's, he embarked on an aggressive
expansion plan, opening Caviarterias in Las Vegas and Florida and more in
New York City (in the SoHo Grand Hotel and in Grand Central Terminal).

By the end of 1998, the business had become complicated. For one thing, he
and Ms. Black Sobol separated in 1997. But they still worked together. "I
assisted him, whatever he asked me to do, in the store, in the warehouse,"
Ms. Black Sobol said, adding that she had lent him close to half a million
dollars that she received as a settlement after an accident. Her family had
been involved in the business, too.

Bruce Sobol, on the other hand, said in court papers that Ms. Black Sobol
"has not been involved in the family business," describing her
participation after her separation from Eric as "nonexistent."

In a brief interview last week, Mr. Sobol said there was no merit to any of
Ms. Black Sobol's claims. "The company is run in an entirely honest and
forthright manner," he said. "She's just trying to harass us to make us pay
her off, and that's all I'm supposed to say."

In 1998, the United States and other countries took steps to protect the
beleaguered beluga and other sturgeon. Strict new import permits were
required, and inspectors from the federal Fish and Wildlife Service began
taking samples of shipments and using DNA testing on them.

In the course of the next few years, some of Eric Sobol's suppliers and
competitors were charged with smuggling and were sentenced to prison terms.
He was never involved in a criminal case. But in civil proceedings in late
1998 and early 1999, the Fish and Wildlife inspectors tried to seize
hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of his shipments, contending that
the paperwork was inadequate and that the caviar was mislabeled.

This set off a bitter series of lawsuits in which Mr. Sobol challenged not
only the seizures but also the whole DNA testing process. Those cases,
which have filled more than two file boxes in the Federal District
Courthouse in Brooklyn, continue to this day.

In the next two years, things only got tougher. In 2000, Mr. Sobol and Ms.
Black Sobol filed separate divorce actions. And some of the new Caviarteria
locations were not doing well; according to court filings, the company's
tax returns for fiscal 2001 showed a $2 million loss.

Ms. Black Sobol said she believed that the company's financial difficulties
drove her husband to take his own life, so that his large insurance
policies would cover Caviarteria's debts. Walter Drobenko, a lawyer for
Bruce Sobol and the company, said that he would not speculate on why Mr.
Sobol had killed himself, but added that he did not believe it was over money.

In any event, on April 16, 2001, the manager of a Friendly's Restaurant in
Danville, Pa., found Mr. Sobol's Mercedes in the parking lot, according to
the Montour County coroner, Scott E. Lynn. He said Mr. Sobol had shot
himself in the head using two handguns that were licensed to him. When he
died, he was one month shy of his 40th birthday.

The coroner also said that the autopsy found evidence of heroin use. Told
of that finding last week, Ms. Black Sobol became extremely upset, saying
that her husband had not used heroin, and that he might have done so to
prepare himself for his suicide, which she described as meticulously planned.

"This was a sacrifice to save the business, a sacrifice for the family,"
she said, adding that after his death she discovered her husband had gotten
a new tattoo: "Death Before Dishonor."

According to filings in Surrogate's Court in Manhattan, Mr. Sobol left his
personal property and co-op apartment to Ms. Black Sobol (she was also the
beneficiary of a large life insurance policy). His business holdings were
to be put in trust, ultimately going to his wife or, if they were
divorcing, to his brother, Bruce. Mr. Drobenko, who had been part-owner of
one Caviarteria and owned a house with Eric Sobol, was one of the trustees
of the estate.

Ms. Black Sobol and Bruce Sobol soon began battling. He tried to prevent
her from becoming executor, citing an allegation Eric made in his divorce
papers that she had been unfaithful. Her lawyers say Bruce Sobol was
raising baseless allegations to try to make her go away.

In October 2001, Ms. Black Sobol agreed to let Bruce become the
administrator of the estate. She has also elected to receive one-third of
Eric Sobol's estate, as she is allowed to do under New York State law.

Suspicious that her brother-in-law and Mr. Drobenko are trying to
understate the value of the business, she tried to get Bruce Sobol removed
as administrator last year. The judge, Surrogate Eve M. Preminger, did not
do that, but in August she did order him to provide an accounting of the
estate within 30 days.

That has not happened, Ms. Black Sobol's lawyers say. They are planning to
file a motion in the next two weeks accusing Bruce Sobol of destroying a
suicide note that they contend qualifies under Pennsylvania law as a valid
will.

In the most recent volley, in December, Ms. Black Sobol and two men from
Florida who say they raised money for the company tried to put Caviarteria
into bankruptcy, saying they were owed hundreds of thousands of dollars. In
their filings, the group asked for an emergency examiner or trustee,
contending that Mr. Sobol was improperly permitting his mother to take
money and merchandise out of the store.

A judge hearing the request did not agree to the emergency order;
Caviarteria has until the end of this month to respond.

Mr. Drobenko said that the bankruptcy petition was "frivolous and without
any merit." The Caviarteria on 59th Street, he said, "is doing good,"
although some of the other locations had to close because they were not
profitable.

Ms. Black Sobol "is looking for a rainbow," he said, and added, "There is
no rainbow.