It’s the kind of story – wealth and power, illicit sex, an innocent child, a playground of the rich and famous, and high drama in the courtroom – that some editors dream of.
By Pat Savage
The New York Post captured it beautifully in its headline: “Wasserstein heirs battle with dad’s love child over $2.3 billion Hamptons estate.”
The illegitimate child of the deceased banker and owner of New York magazine, Bruce Wasserstein – an 11-year old girl – is saying through her representatives that five half siblings are conspiring to rip her off to the tune of a $2.3 billion estate, a mansion in the exclusive Hamptons.
“In addition to six kids, Wasserstein, who died in 2009 at age 61, left behind a widow, two ex-wives, a mistress, and four lavish residences: a London townhouse, a Paris apartment, a 17-acre Santa Barbara estate, and a sprawling 27.5-acre oceanfront East Hampton property known as Cranberry Dune,” the Post reported.
Erin McCarthy was reportedly sleeping with a married Wasserstein, got pregnant and had a child, named Sky, in 2008. Apparently, the other kids don’t want to share with the result of their dad’s dalliance.
Wasserstein, of course, was born and raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. He was one of five children of Lola (née Schleifer) and Morris Wasserstein, a Jewish immigrant from pre-World War II Poland who emigrated to New York City and started a ribbon company. Wasserstein’s maternal grandfather, Simon Schleifer, was a Jewish teacher in the yeshiva in Wloclawek, Poland who later emigrated to Paterson, New Jersey and became a Hebrew school principal.
Piety, however, has no place in this tale. Despite his impressive credentials — investment banker, businessman, graduate of the McBurney School, the University of Michigan, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Law School (plus a year at the University of Cambridge) – Wasserstein had trouble with fidelity.
“The trustees overseeing the estate sold three of the four homes before reaching the 2015 deal with McCarthy, but Sky hasn’t gotten a penny from the property deal since the two sides are still squabbling over how much Cranberry Dune is worth,” the Post chronicled. “The estate insists the Further Lane property, which includes a 23,500-square-foot, seven-bedroom manse, is worth just $120 million.”
Wasserstein’s somewhat unkempt family tree looks like this:’
– Laura Lynelle Killin (married 1968, divorced 1974).
– Christine Parrott (divorced 1992 after giving birth to three kids, Ben, Pam and Scoop.
– Claude Becker (married 1996, divorced 2008 but not before having a pair of sons together).
– Angela Chao, (married 2009, up until Wasserstein’s death).
