A residential broker who married an older, wealthy knickknack mogul just 10 months before he died is at the center of a battle over a $32 million inheritance.
Brett Jordan, whose Linkedin page shows he works at Bond New York, married Christmas-ceramics millionaire Edward Bazinet in a “secret” civil ceremony in November 2017, the New York Post reported. That was just 10 months before Bazinet passed away due to a protracted illness.
But Bazinet’s family claims Jordan “targeted” his older beau, and afterward the mogul became increasingly isolated from the family and then suddenly “transformed” his decades-old estate plan to shift the large part of his fortune to Jordan, Bazinet’s sister claimed in court papers.
Jordan claims he met Bazinet on the street one day in 2014 and the two connected over their shared interests in art and Broadway.
He became the broker for Bazinet’s $24 million, 19-room penthouse at 60 Warren Street, which had been damaged on 9/11. Jordan then collected commissions on a quick succession of high-priced real estate deals including Bazinet’s purchase of a $15 million condo at 100 Barclay Street.
Bazinet initially left Jordan $500,000 in his will, but then later expanded his share to include money, art and property, according to the post.
The ailing mogul’s sister moved him from New York “in the middle of the night” to a hospital in Minneapolis, where on his deathbed he allegedly signed papers revoking the changes to his will.
Jordan moved Bazinet back to New York just a month before his death, according to court papers.
“I cared for him because he was my husband and I loved him,” Jordan asserted in court papers. [NYP] – Rich Bockmann