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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