Danny Pelosi’s lawyers claim attorneys for his late wife, Generosa Ammon, understated by $40 million the assets she inherited from her murdered first husband, Ted Ammon, court papers say.
The papers, part of Pelosi’s challenge to the postnup agreement and Generosa’s will, also charge that lawyers Michael Dowd and Gerard Sweeney lied to Pelosi and Generosa by falsely telling them the bank that served as co-executor of financier Ted Ammon’s estate would not pay her unless she separated or divorced him.
Pelosi’s lawyer, James Spiess, yesterday said he does not know where the $40 million went. He said Generosa thought she was almost broke and did not get the money that was coming to her – because her lawyers never asked for it.
“I don’t know where it is. I have to think it’s still there,” said Spiess.
“The purpose of the fraud was to allow Dowd and Sweeney to gain control over Generosa’s assets and the assets of Ted Ammon’s estate” and gain “mega-commissions,” Spiess said.
“I don’t know if it’s criminal, but it’s certainly unethical. It’s certainly a fraud,” he said.
Dowd denied that he or Sweeney did anything improper in the case and said the latest charges “are totally untrue – in capital letters.”
He said he had “no recollection” of ever telling Pelosi or Generosa that the bank would not pay unless they were apart, but said “I didn’t think that they would pay into her estate if he were the heir.”
Sweeney denied the charges and said there is no missing $40 million, just bad bookkeeping that did not figure on half of the estate being put in trust.
“Danny Pelosi is a pathological liar and a convicted felon. Why would anyone believe him?” asked Sweeney. “I don’t think I ever told him that he had to be divorced from her.”
But, in an affidavit filed yesterday in Suffolk Surrogate Court, Pelosi swears that Sweeney and Dowd defrauded Generosa and himself by claiming they had to separate in order for her to get her inheritance.
Pelosi said he was told by the lawyers that because “I was a suspect in her first husband’s murder,” the bank “would not distribute any estate assets to her.
“At this point, Generosa was becoming frantic,” said Pelosi, who also claims that Sweeney lied to him and told him he should sign a $2 million postnuptial agreement to pay his defense lawyers but that he was also “taken care of” in Generosa’s will.
Pelosi said in the statement that Dowd became angry when he balked at signing the July 1 postnup and “asked me if I realized that I was facing a murder indictment with no money at my disposal to hire a defense attorney.”
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BEQUEATH BEEFS
Excerpts from Danny Pelosi’s deposition in the contest over his wife’s will
. . . legally, I was entitled to share in her assets and since I was a suspect in her first husband’s murder, J.P. Morgan would not distribute any estate assets to her. At this point, Generosa was becoming frantic.
Mr. Sweeney and Mr. Dowd repeatedly told me that (a post-nuptial agreement) was just a formality.
(Dowd) told me that if I did not sign the agreement. I was going to be indicted, tried with a legal aid defense attorney fresh out of law school and I would spend the rest of my life in prison for a crime that I did not commit.
(Generosa) was crying and insisted that Sweeney and Dowd were only trying to help us. I signed the agreement and left.