Lawsuit: Ex-Mob Informant Bolts Witness Protection Program, Befriends Frail, Elderly Widow, Dupes Her Into Signing Away Real Estate Portfolio Worth Ten$ Of Million$

In New York City, DNAInfo (NYC) reports:

• Under golden arches, as the smell of Big Macs wafted through the air, Lee Power signed away more than $100 million to a man with two identities whom everyone called "The General."
  
  Power, a toothless, disheveled widow who was often mistaken for a bag lady despite her enormous wealth, had known The General — or Alben Sagan, his legal name — for less than two years. But in that short time, he had become her ever-present companion.
  
  The two first met in late 2008 when Sagan mysteriously arrived at Power’s door looking for an apartment in one of the half-dozen residential buildings she owned on the Upper West Side.
  
  Soon he was being paid to drive her around. Then he started overseeing the maintenance of her properties. A year later, he was living rent free in a one-bedroom unit in one of her buildings located steps from Central Park.
  
  And then Power sat with three of Sagan’s friends in her favorite booth in the McDonald’s at 71st Street and Broadway at 10:30 p.m. on June 18, 2010.
  
  She signed a will that left all but a small sliver of her riches to Sagan. She also signed a document that gave him power of attorney over her.
  
  Sagan’s friends signed as witnesses. As the ink dried, Sagan appeared, and they all congratulated him.
  
  Over the next few years, Sagan would become the president of her real estate companies, Powers Associates and 15 West Realty LLC, negotiating multi-million-dollar sales of her properties.
  
  Meanwhile, Power would spend the last year of her life in and out of hospitals and finally in a nursing home until she died at 82 on Jan. 7, 2014.
  
  After her death, Power’s family was shocked to learn that a man they barely knew had been left 90 percent of her fortune.
  
  Power had no children, but she had come from a large family scattered overseas, and only one niece was named a beneficiary in the will.
  
  Christine Corney, Power’s older sister who lived in England, suspected foul play and wrote a letter to the Manhattan Surrogate’s Court objecting to the will. She stated that her sister never once mentioned Sagan’s name in their many phone conversations.
  
  “As sisters we were very close and I knew first hand that she didn’t trust men, and never has!” Corney wrote. “It seems that my sister’s greatest fear was realised in the last few years of her life.”
  
  ***
  Lawyers for a one of Power’s nieces accuse Sagan of preying on an extremely rich woman suffering from dementia in order to gain control of her real estate portfolio, which is worth, they estimate, somewhere between $80 and $120 million. They also point to emails that claim she lived in fear of him.
  
  “Unfortunately, the facts of this case are not so uncommon. You have someone who was elderly, alone and vulnerable,” said Kimberly Schechter, the attorney who represents Power’s niece Janet Braker in the case over the validity of the will. Braker’s mother, Christine Corney, died shortly after writing the letter objecting to the will.
  
  Sagan said Power was of sound mind when she wrote her will and remained so for years after. Several tenants also said that Sagan acted as a lifeline to a woman who, without his care, would have died years earlier.

For more, see How a Mob Informant Who Left Witness Protection Got $100M From a Widow.