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Robert Mihaly told Julie Seel he needed someone who believed in him and time to focus on finishing the castle he had spent decades building, Seel testified this week.
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She tried to give him just that, she said, but it ended up costing her nearly everything she had built for herself.
“It’s part of the reason that I’m here to talk about the harm that I have undergone by being in part of this,” she said.
The Durham clinical psychologist told jurors Tuesday and Wednesday that she poured at least $233,000 into Castle Mont Rouge, reduced the time she spent with patients and spent six days a week hauling materials, managing workers and laboring alongside Mihaly.
But Seel said the romantic relationship that drew her into Mihaly’s life and dream to finish the castle quickly deteriorated. The ownership interest and financial protections she said he promised never materialized. By November 2023, she said, Mihaly had barred her from the property, leaving her without a stake in the castle and still paying to store materials purchased to finish it.
In May 2024, Seel filed a lawsuit accusing Mihaly of fraud, negligent misrepresentation and unfair and deceptive trade practices. In a trial that started this week, Seel is asking a Durham County jury to award her money for her labor and materials and impose a lien against the property. She ultimately wants the castle sold to satisfy the debt and cover her attorney’s fees.
Mihaly, who is representing himself, contends in counterclaims that Seel used their brief romance to try to seize control of his life’s work.
Mihaly, 59, accuses Seel of operating a “romance scam enterprise,” fraudulently inducing him into a business agreement, systematically impoverishing him, laundering money and hacking into his laptop and taking his trade secrets.
Seel first connected with Mihaly through the dating website Match.com on June 26, 2023. Mihaly told her he had recently moved out of the home he had shared with his partner of 20 years and their two children, Seel testified.
“He was very enthusiastic about finding his one true love, and I directed him to read my profile that said I wanted to take it slow, and that I wasn’t interested in jumping right into a relationship,” she said.
Mihaly told her about his work as an artist and directed her to his website, news stories and YouTube videos about Castle Mont Rouge.
Seel watched the videos repeatedly. She was captivated by the story of the self-taught sculptor who had created monuments for the graves of Elizabeth Edwards, the late wife of former U.S. senator and presidential candidate John Edwards, and for former UNC basketball coach Dean Smith, Seel said.
“He just seemed like this prodigy artist who created these beautiful statues,” she said. “It was very exciting, truthfully, to be part of helping him in that way.”
After Seel and Mihaly met for drinks on July 1, 2023, Mihaly invited her to the castle the next day. He has described the outing as their first date. Seel said she considered it a volunteer project, as she collected 34 bags of garbage from the property.
What she found bore little resemblance to what Mihaly had described or what she had seen in photographs, she testified.
“It looked like it was an abandoned, unsafe job site,” she said.
The entrance was beautiful, but much of the castle remained unfinished. It had no installed windows, working doors, finished ceilings or a driveway, Seel testified. Marble was coming off the walls, and upper floors and balconies were unsecured.
Still, she could see its promise.
“But you can also see how, like, magical the possibilities were,” she said.
Days after meeting, the couple started planning to move in together and to finish the castle.
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Although there was initially some romantic interest, Seel said it faded quickly. She repeatedly asked Mihaly to back away from a romantic relationship, she testified. But she still wanted to help him create a stable home for his children because Mihaly had said they had been psychologically abused by their mother.
Mihaly denies saying that.
Seel also had a daughter who was excited about having an older sister.
“The first priority was a stable, safe home for the children,” Seel said. “The second was the castle.”
But Mihaly continued to push for a physical relationship, she testified.
“I had to lock myself into three different bedrooms. He’d get very angry, very demanding,” she said.
Mihaly denies harassing Seel, contending he never raised his voice to her.
Seel, who started buying materials right after seeing the castle, initially offered Mihaly a personal loan to finish the castle project and transform it into a profitable event venue, she said. She asked for a secured promissory note, she testified, but Mihaly kept coming up with reasons not to sign it.
He soon began pushing to replace the loan with a partnership, Seel said. She did not want to become his partner in transforming the castle into a wedding venue, but by then, she testified, she was trying to protect the money she had already spent.
Mihaly presented himself as a licensed and insured contractor, a professional sculptor and financially stable partner who could perform nearly all the work, Seel contended. She later found out that he had let his contractor license lapse. He also oversold his construction skills and the materials he said he had, she testified.
Much of the materials Mihaly said he already had was scattered across the castle property or stored at his former partner’s and mother’s homes, Seel testified. Some of it had been exposed to the weather for decades and was covered in mold.
Seel paid for exterior stone, marble flooring, a copper tub, windows, tools, plywood, mortar and workers, she testified. She coordinated shipments from China and purchased sanders, planers and chainsaws.
“Robert would say, ‘Oh, I forgot to mention I don’t have this’ or ‘We need this,’” she said.
She also started to question Mihaly’s artistic skills, contending she found information showing that sculptures he had sold for thousands of dollars to his clients, portraying them as hand-carved, were actually manufactured in China.
Mihaly denies that, saying it isn’t unusual for artists to use multiple tools to create their artistic vision.
By October 2023, they had signed a “basic castle understanding” agreement in which they both loaned each other money. The agreement called for transferring the castle and surrounding land to a company they would jointly own. They also signed a promissory note under which Seel would lend Mihaly and the company $250,000 to transform the castle into an event venue. The property would serve as collateral, with repayment delayed until the business began making money.
But Mihaly never transferred the property or gave Seel an ownership stake. By mid-November, the relationship had collapsed, and Mihaly barred her from the castle.
After Seel sued Mihaly in May 2024, she said he retaliated by seeking criminal charges accusing her of filing a false lien and taking his children’s surfboards. Seel was arrested in front of her daughter, she said. Those charges were eventually dismissed.
Mihaly also filed a complaint that led the N.C. Psychology Board to place her on two years’ probation, Seel said. He also spread false information about her on social media and reported her to the IRS, triggering an audit she is still fighting.
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Now, she said, she is no longer working because he’s ruined her reputation.
“I’ve lost my entire life just trying to stand up to this person,” Seel said.