Tragedy in SoHo: French Widow Pleads for Compassion After Husband’s Death, NYC Landlord Refuses to Return $213K Deposit

Edited by: TJVNews.com

What began as a dream to bring authentic French cuisine to the heart of New York City has ended in personal tragedy and a battle for basic human decency. Francois-Tanguy Olivon, a French chef who had sold his successful restaurant in Brittany to open a new brasserie in SoHo, mysteriously died in France just weeks before the planned launch of his Manhattan venture, Chez Fanfan. Now, in the devastating aftermath, his widow Manon Olivon is not only grieving the loss of her husband but also fighting a New York landlord’s refusal to return the $213,500 the couple had invested into a restaurant they never got to open.

According to a report on Wednesday in The New York Post, the Olivons had spent over $200,000 on a deposit and two months’ rent for the property at 510 Broome Street, a location they hoped would be the future home of their family-run restaurant. The landlord, Robert Moskowitz, who owns Only Properties LLC, has flatly declined to return any of the couple’s life savings—even after being informed of Francois-Tanguy’s sudden death and Manon’s financial and emotional crisis.

The couple had finalized their plans to relocate to New York with their young children and had sold their restaurant in Saint-Brieuc, a town in France’s Brittany region, to make the leap.

Francois-Tanguy had gone to the south of France for a short trip before the family’s relocation to New York. On February 22, at 1:00 a.m., he called Manon in distress, screaming for help. According to the report in The New York Post, that was the last time she ever heard from him. CCTV footage later showed him falling from a bridge in the town of Bayonne, and his body was recovered from the Adour River 12 days later.

The circumstances remain unclear. His shirt was reportedly “completely torn,” and Manon was left to piece together her life — and care for their children — with no income, no residence, and now, no restaurant.

 “He was shouting at me for help, to come and get him right away,” she told The New York Post, citing local media reports.

That was the last time she heard his voice.

On March 1, Manon reached out to Moskowitz in a desperate and heartfelt letter, detailing the harrowing ordeal and begging for some financial relief.

“Today, I am not writing to a landlord — I am writing to a man,” she wrote, as reported by The New York Post. “A man who, I hope, can look beyond clauses and figures and understand that sometimes, life puts us through unimaginable trials that we cannot face alone.”

Manon did not demand the full amount, only asking for at least one month’s rent back to help support her children in the wake of their father’s death. Her request was met not with sympathy, but with cold legal maneuvering.

Rather than offering a partial refund or a gesture of goodwill, Only Properties’ attorney Nicole Waknine responded on March 3 with a legal warning: sign a “surrender agreement” or face a demand for the full $3 million value of the 10-year lease the couple had signed.

“Refusing to sign the surrender agreement will not result in a return of your security deposit,” Waknine wrote, “but it will result in you being held fully responsible for all of the obligations set forth in the parties’ lease agreement,” according to documents obtained by The New York Post.

Crushed and cornered, Manon ultimately signed the agreement, relinquishing her rights to the lease — and to any refund of the funds she and her late husband had poured into the project.

Reactions to the landlord’s unbending stance have been swift and fierce, with critics calling the response “heartless” and emblematic of the ruthless pressures that immigrants and small business owners often face in New York’s cutthroat real estate market.

Legal experts and community advocates have pointed out that while the landlord may technically be within his legal rights, his response reveals a profound lack of empathy — especially given the tragic and unforeseeable nature of Francois-Tanguy’s death.

“This is not just a broken lease — it’s a broken family, a broken dream,” said one real estate attorney not connected to the case, in comments relayed by The New York Post. “Sometimes, doing the right thing isn’t about contracts. It’s about conscience.”

Chez Fanfan was supposed to be a celebration of French culinary tradition and a new chapter for a family willing to risk everything for a future in America. Francois-Tanguy and Manon believed that their food and their passion could find a place in New York’s crowded restaurant scene, as was explained in The New York Post report. They gambled their past success, their savings, and their hearts on a city that now, for Manon, feels colder and more indifferent than ever.

 “I don’t have anything,” Manon wrote in an email to The New York Post. “I don’t have a house anymore because we sold it a while ago to move to New York. I no longer have a car either. I no longer have a job because my husband and I sold our restaurant in Brittany.”

In a heartfelt letter to Moskowitz dated March 1, Manon explained the tragedy and pleaded for humanity. Out of fear and desperation, Manon signed the agreement.

Since signing, Manon has launched a GoFundMe to help support herself and her children. As of Wednesday, it had raised only $550, The New York Post reported.

 “I’m living a real nightmare,” she wrote in another email to the outlet. “On top of that comes the terrible weight of an insensitive, incomprehensible, heartless landlord who could care less about my situation and my pain and who doesn’t want to give me back even a single cent of my deposit.”

Though Moskowitz declined to comment through his attorney, his past conduct offers insight into his hardline posture. In a previous case reported by The New York Post, Moskowitz evicted tenants from a rent-stabilized loft at 177 Hudson Street, accusing them of improperly running a photography business out of the space to claim tax write-offs. “It should offend every taxpayer that such a fortunate couple sought to profit off a rent-stabilized apartment,” Moskowitz said at the time, criticizing their alleged exploitation of the system.

Now, critics are turning that moral indignation back on him.

Prominent New York real estate attorney Jeff Margolis, who specializes in restaurant leasing, told The New York Post that the landlord’s behavior, while technically legal, is highly atypical — and morally questionable.

“There are a lot of landlords out there who would like to be helpful,” Margolis said. “And not take that cavalier or draconian position.”

He emphasized that in a hot market like SoHo, the landlord could have easily found a new tenant, saying, “He could have said, ‘We are going to hold this money but let’s see if we can find another tenant quickly and give back some of the security deposit.’”

Indeed, others involved in the project have shown compassion. Liquor license attorney Max Bookman, who was assisting the Olivons with legal filings for the restaurant, told The New York Post he waived his fees. “You don’t collect money from a widow whose husband just died,” he said.

For Manon, the loss is more than financial. It’s a dream deferred — and perhaps permanently lost. Chez Fanfan was never just a restaurant. It was meant to be a new beginning, a future for her family, a labor of love built over years of culinary experience in France.

Now, she is left with little more than grief, a legal document she signed under duress, and an unforgiving city where her pleas for mercy went unanswered.

One question remains painfully clear: What does it say about New York — and about its real estate elite — when a grieving widow, stripped of her husband, her home, her livelihood, and her savings, is met not with grace, but with a threat?

For Manon Olivon, the American dream has become an American nightmare.