Lawsuit Filed by NYC Holocaust Survivor Claims Son She Trusted Bilked Her Out of Her Fortune

Lawsuit Filed by NYC Holocaust Survivor Claims Son She Trusted Bilked Her Out of Her Fortune

Edited by: TJVNews.com

Fractious families and unscrupulous relatives can make life absolutely miserable for many people, but when one is a survivor of the Holocaust and its attendant brutality, matters such as these are downright heartbreaking.

The New York Post reported that retired Manhattan prosthodontist Irena Mausner, 87, who is a Holocaust survivor, has claimed that her son siphoned nearly $2 million in cash and stocks from her and tried to steal two multi-million-dollar California properties from under her nose. What makes it even worse is that Mausner is recovering from colon cancer and a stroke, the paper reported.

Mausner was married  to Chanel executive husband Jack Mausner, who died in 2014, the Post reported. The couple built a portfolio of cash, stocks, investments, and nearly $5 million in real estate, according to the report.

According to the lawsuit that Mausner filed in Manhattan Federal Court, she said that she placed her trust in her 62-year old son, Ian O. Mausner to manage her portfolio. She was terribly saddened to learn that rather than doing just that he engaged in “an array of theft, fraud, and deceit,” the Post reported.

The younger Mausner is a Wall Streeter who has authored a book on divorce and paints himself as a philanthropist, the Post reported. His mother said in the lawsuit that she filed that Ian’s conduct is  “illegal and nothing short of outrageous,” the Post reported, She is also seeking unspecified damages from her son, the report said.

When learning of the lawsuit filed against him, Ian Mausner allegedly lashed out at his mother, telling her she was the one who was “truly reprehensible and unforgivable,” the Post reported.

In her lawsuit, the Post reported that Irena Mausner said that her son raised the issue of her being a survivor of the Nazi genocide targeting Jews during World War II and the many serious health issues that she has experienced, when he said to her,  “you asked me why God has done this to you . . . and perhaps we now know why.”

The suit charges he forged her name on the deeds of a $2.2 million San Diego apartment and a $2.4 million Carlsbad,  California mansion they jointly owned, and gave himself sole control to try to clandestinely sell them, the report stated.

Ian Mausner allegedly shifted $1.7 million of his mother’s money into a Robinhood investment account in his own name from 2018 until 2022, the Post reported, while giving his mother “phony” documents showing the funds were in her control, as was claimed by Irena Mausner in her lawsuit.

Moreover, the Post reported that according to the lawsuit that was filed by Irena Mausner, her son also allegedly sold shares of her Colgate-Palmolive stock, as well as stealing $50,000; and she alleged that he absconded with $100,000 from her retirement account. The report also indicated that court filings said that Ian ran up more than $13,000 in credit card charges for California Closets, vacation home rentals, and movies; and stole roughly $7,000 in payments from his mother’s long-term care insurance, the Post reported.

The Post reported that according to the lawsuit, it was said of Ian, “His actions have become more troubling with the passage of time, including an array of theft, fraud, and deceit, combined with his confronting his elderly mother while she was in a medical rehabilitation facility and threatening his sister.”

Irena Mausner charged that this is not the only instance of her son committing criminal offenses, the Post reported. She claimed that her son who a one-time capital management and financial advisor ran afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013 for an alleged cherry-picking scheme and was later required to disgorge $670,000.

The Post reported that the elder Mausner  survived the Holocaust by being hidden in a convent in Warsaw, Poland, for several years, when she was three years old and World War II broke out, said her son.  He denied the allegations against him in the lawsuit and instead assigned blame for this family rift on a jealous sibling

Speaking to the Post, Ian Mausner said, “It’s a very sad tale. It’s all not true.” He added that his relationship with his mother deteriorated after she had a “very serious stroke,” and his sister allegedly convinced her mother to give her power of attorney. The son said, “It’s my sister who is really driving all this. … I’ll fight this.”