A former king of New York City co-op conversions says a
lawyer conspired with his own daughters to steal $6 million from a
family trust fund while he was incapacitated by open-heart surgery.
Aaron Ziegelman, 89, had made a fortune converting apartment
buildings into co-ops in the 1980s and ’90s and gave away $40 million
to charity.
But a series of bad investments has left him destitute and
facing hundreds of thousands of dollars in court-ordered judgments from
former clients, according to his new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
After Ziegelman’s wife died last year, he turned to a trust
that held money from her life-insurance proceeds, only to discover he
had renounced his interest in the funds in 2012 while he was recovering
from surgery and “cognitively impaired,” court papers say.
“I have a client who’s 89,” said Ziegelman’s attorney, Jason
Melzer. “He doesn’t remember any reason why he signed that document.
Why would he give up his interest in so much money for no reason?”
Ziegelman believes he was taken advantage of by his
daughters — Jane Ziegelman of Brooklyn and Amy Avital of Tel Aviv,
Israel — who were used to being supported by their father.
He’s suing the lawyer who handled the paperwork, Leonard Goldner, to overturn his renunciation in the trust.
Goldner and an attorney for the daughters did not return messages seeking comment.
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Daughters conned dad while he was incapacitated from surgery: suit
1 comment:
This is horrible. I can't imagine how he felt finding out his daughters did this to him when he was down and out. And I hope he gets the lawyer disbarred.
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