March 30, 2026

Generosa and Ted Ammon - Part 1

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To the outside world, Ted Ammon had built the kind of life most people only dream about — a self-made Wall Street titan worth nearly $100 million, a Hamptons beach mansion, and twin children he adored. But behind the facade, his marriage to the brilliant, volatile Generosa had curdled into something dangerous. A bitter divorce, a secret affair, and a brash Long Island electrician with a criminal record had pushed an already unstable situation to the breaking point.

When Ted's business partner flew out to the East Hampton beach house one October morning, what he found inside would haunt him forever. Thirty or more blows to the head. Stun gun burns. And not a single witness in sight.

No murder weapon. No DNA. No fingerprints. Just a dead man in a mansion.

Today's snack: H‑E‑B Blanched Almonds - Sweet Chile and H‑E‑B Twisters Sandwich Cookies - Mexican Hot Chocolate (thanks Carla!)

Listen to part 2 today on Patreon

Sources:

  • Crowley, Kieran. Almost Paradise: The Murder of Multimillionaire Ted Ammon in the Hamptons—America's Playground of the Rich and Famous. St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2005.
  • "Danny Pelosi: Wife Had Ted Ammon Killed." East Hampton, NY Patch, Patch Media, 7 Mar. 2012.
  • "Dominick Dunne's power,privilege and justice - Rich Man Poor Man {Regal}." YouTube, uploaded by Regal.
  • Flynn, Sheila. "The murder that shook the Hamptons: A picture-perfect family, a savage bludgeoning – and a shocking twist." The Independent, 29 Jul. 2024.
  • 59 Middle Lane. Directed by Greg Ammon, GoDigital, 2015. Fandango at Home (Vudu).
  • Landes, Jennifer. "The Ammon Children, 11 Years Later." The East Hampton Star, 9 Oct. 2012.
  • Leung, Rebecca. "Part III: Murder In The Hamptons." CBS News, 10 Feb. 2004.
  • Sengupta, Sounak. "Ted Ammon Murder: Where is Daniel Pelosi Now?" The Cinemaholic, 30 Jul. 2024
WEBVTT

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Hi, I'm rich, and I'm Tina.

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If there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years

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of marriage.

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It's it some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and.

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Some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

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Welcome to love, Mary kill.

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Hey, Tina, be rich. How are you today?

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I'm sleepy today. How are you? I'm trying to fake

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it till I make it.

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Yeah, did you take a little do a little caffeine

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gum or something maybe to get your uh.

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Huh, I sure did. You're telling everyone my secrets.

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You sounded really perky in our opening, so you didn't

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sound sleepy at all.

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Trying I said, I was going to fake it till

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I make it until the caffeine kicks in. Neither of

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us drink coffee, which is a little known fat. You

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drink a lot of soda. I don't, but sometimes I

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do take I chew caffeine gum and I really like it.

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I wish I could remember the brand because I think

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it tastes pretty good and it does give me like

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a little bolt burst of energy.

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I have these caffeine mints that I take once in

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a while, and they really do make a big difference.

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I have to say.

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Z Energy is the name of the gum.

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The energy highly recommended. You sent me a video earlier

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today that has unlocked a new fear of meteors. There's

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a lot of meteors falling around.

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Yeah, there's a land in southeast Michigan. I didn't do

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any research to see where it landed. You know where

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it landed.

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I don't know. No, I didn't hear where it landed.

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But there's been a couple in Ohio, a couple in Michigan.

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I read that there have been actually twenty over the

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last week or two and one. This is in Houston.

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A little piece of a meteor went through somebody's roof

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and fell into their house.

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Yeah, it could happen.

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Yeah, it's crazy.

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What is the difference between a meteor and a meteorite?

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Oh, I was afraid you were going to ask me.

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A meteorite is what it becomes after it goes through

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the act it hits the ground.

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I think I'll take your word for it. I'm sure

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we will hear from somebody if we're not right about that.

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So today I was out doing Aaron's before we recorded,

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and I canceled the XM radio in my car for

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various reasons. But I was thinking about getting a new car,

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blah blah blah, but I don't I was listening to

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a podcast. I didn't want to listen to the podcast.

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I was wanting to switch over to music, like my

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liked songs on Spotify. And I try really hard not

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to touch my phone when I'm driving. And I was like, wait,

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how can I do that? Oh? I can ask Siri.

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So I asked Siri, Siri, can you play Tina's liked

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songs from Spotify? And Siri responded and so, no, I'm

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going to get everyone. I'm sorry everything, get everyone's series

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activated now, and it said now playing Michelle and Jonathan.

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Nice episode of Love Mary Kill. And I was like, Siri,

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cop stop step serie step step. And then I tried

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it again and I did the same thing again. I'm like, no, Erry, No,

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I can't listen to that. Because I subscribe to Love

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Mary Kill, I don't really listen to.

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That's so sad that you don't listen to Love Mary

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Kelle and you're so scared of listening to it that

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you have to yell at honey.

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If I listened to it, there would be I would

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because already. I'm like, when I go to bed at

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and I'm like, I can't believe I talked about our

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toaster again. No one cares about your toaster, Tina. That's

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what happens when I So if I listen to it,

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I'd be like, Tina, you're an idiot. You sent me

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a video today. I've seen this guy before. He's kind

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of funny. He's kind of funny. He talks about Michigan

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people and how we talk differently, and a lot of

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people are like, oh, your accents are so cute, and

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I'm like, what accent? I speak English perfectly, but apparently

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I don't. But I forgot the words he said, But

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how do you say the word C M F O

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R T A B l E.

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Well, I sent that because I every time I say

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that word, I get in my head about it because

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I know it is pronounced comfortable, but people around here,

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myself included, pronounce it comfortable. Like, yeah, it's just it's weird.

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Well, I think I do too. I think I do too.

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Yeah.

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And the other word that he mentioned is she a

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r age?

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Yeah, that one. I didn't really get.

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Garage garage garage, Yeah, I think some people do kind

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of say garage. Yeah, yeah, I think that's true.

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We do have a lot of kind of weird pronunciation.

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I'm sure it's like that anywhere you go.

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But I don't know if it's a weird pronunciation as

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much as we're lazy people and it's just easier to

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say comfortable than comfortable. Yeah, yeah, I think I do

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say comfortable not I think about it.

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Yeah, you definitely do. The guy you're talking about is

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called his name on Instagram as the Michigander, and he's

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he's pretty funny, I think.

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Yeah.

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Well, I think it's time for a snack. Oh boy,

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we have another, yet another snack that our dear listener

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Carla sent. She has spoiled us like so much.

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Carla's heart is as big as Texas. She's just as

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the sweetest. I love her so much.

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Well, she wanted us to try some snacks from H. E. B.

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Which is apparently a very big, well known grocery store.

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You know what stands for No, I have no idea.

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You think that you would have done your research, You

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would think so one shop of I google it while

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you talk about the snacks.

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Okay, well I brought two of. Then she sent a

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lot of things, including stuff from.

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She did she spent? Yeah, she sent kiddie treats and

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a toy and a really nice recipe book.

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I chose two things from the latest package, and one

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is the HGB Sweet Chili blanched almonds, And then I'm

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really excited to try these twisters Mexican Hot Chocolate. They

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look like Oreos yea their Mexican hot chocolate flavor, Karla.

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He has been eyeing those for like five days since

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we opened the package. One of us ate the entire

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bag of cheeseballs. I don't know who that was. HB

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stands for Howard Edward, but the son and founder who

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took over the Texas grocery store chain in the nineteen twenties.

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The initials are frequently associated with the slogan here Everything's better.

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I've always wanted to go to one because I hear

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people saying it's just such a great experience. I worked

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in grocery stores growing up, and I, you know, when

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we got on a trip, I always loved to take

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a walk through the tree store to see, you know,

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what offerings they have.

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Yeah, for sure, Well someday we will get there, But

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why don't we try these. Well, what did you think

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of the sweet chili almonds and the Twisters cookies.

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The almonds were really good. You can tell that that's

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a healthier snack. Yeah, and the twisters were They're so good.

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They had They're really good. I'm gonna have to make

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a double stuff out of them later, I think.

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Okay. I thought that the chocolate cookie part was tastier

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than an oreo M. Yeah, you know what I mean.

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I thought it had more flavor to it. Yeah, I'd

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say so, yeah, really good, excellent.

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Yeah, thanks again, Carla.

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Thank you, Carla. We love you.

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Well. If you'd like to send us a snack, send

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it to LMK pod po box one one one, Dexter,

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Michigan four eight one three zero. Today's case is a

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recommendation from Michelle. Thanks for the recommendation, Michelle, and I

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do want to give a content warning. This case includes

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discussion of child sexual abuse, so please listen with care.

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It was Monday, October second, two thousand and one, in

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the affluent village of East Hampton, New York. A helicopter

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touched down near the sprawling estate of Ted Ammon, a

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prominent New York investment banker. His business partner, Mark Engelson,

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had grown worried. No one had been able to reach

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Ted since Saturday, so Mark and Ted's driver, Milton, flew

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out from the city to check on him. What they

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found inside the mansion would stay with them forever. Ted

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was dead beaten so severely he was nearly unrecognizable. Ted

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Amman had it all. He was a self made Wall

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Street success story, running his own company after leaving a

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global investment firm worth somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety

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million dollars. He and his wife, Generosa had adopted twin

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toddlers from Ukraine. They had a beach house mansion in

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the Hampton's, a townhouse and a fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan,

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and a sprawling estate in England. It might have seemed

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like the perfect life, but things had unraveled over the

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past year. Ted and Generosa were hearing the end of

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a bitter, ugly divorce, and Generosa, who stood to inherit

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a significant portion of Ted's estate, had already moved on.

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She was seeing a Long Island electrician named Danny Pelosi,

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a man with a colorful, checkered past and a volatile temper.

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After detectives processed the crime scene. There were more questions

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than answers. No murder weapon, no fingerprints, no DNA, no witnesses,

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just a dead man in a mansion with Ted and

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Generosa's divorce nearly final. The timing was hard to ignore.

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But how do you make a murder case out of

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thin air? And who really walked into that house in

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East Hampton and beat Ted Ammon to death?

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So you said that Generosa is dating a new man

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named Danny. Was he the cause of the divorce?

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No, he was not. That's one thing I can say

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about Danny as he was definitely not the cause of

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the divorce.

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Okay, but he did have a checkered past and a

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volatile temper.

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He did.

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And it is interesting that she went from small time

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millionaire to a working man.

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Yeah. It almost seemed like she was looking for something

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the opposite of what she had in her marriage to Ted.

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Robert Theodore Ammon was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in August

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of nineteen forty nine. His father, Bob, managed a steel mill.

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His mother, Betty Lee, was the kind of mom who

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made him believe he could do anything he said his

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mind to. He had an older sister, Sandy, who was

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just under two years old when Teddy, as everyone called him,

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came along. From early on, it was clear that Teddy

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Ammon was wired differently than most kids. He was competitive, sharp,

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and driven to succeed in whatever he did. He played

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Little League baseball, football, and raced on the swim team.

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He and Sandy both took piano lessons and shared a

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love of jazz.

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So ted and his sister their kids, they're not even

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teenagers yet and they have a love of jazz music.

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Yeah, I mean, this was the nineteen fifties, but I

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did read that once the Beatles came along, they both

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fell in love with the Beatles as well. When he

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was in eighth grade, his father was transferred to run

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a steel plant in East Aurora, New York, a small

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town about twenty five miles outside of Buffalo. Teddy settled

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in easily. He was athletic and tall, eventually growing to

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six foot four, and he had the kind of easy

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confidence that made people gravitate towards him. He had lots

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of friends and a steady stream of girlfriends. In the

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fall of nineteen sixty seven, he headed off to Bucknell

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University in Central Pennsylvania with a plan to study architecture,

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but he changed his major five times before finally landing

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on a double major in arts and economics. He joined

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a frat, played football, and dated around. He also worked hard,

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but still wasn't sure exactly what he wanted to do.

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He graduated in June nineteen seventy one with no particular plan.

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His girlfriend at the time was living in San Francisco,

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so he followed her west. He worked in a warehouse

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for a while, then got accepted into a training program

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for international banks. He threw himself into it and discovered

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he had a real talent for finance. Things with his

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girlfriend didn't work out, but in the international banking program

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he met a young woman named Randy Day. The two

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fell for each other, and when they both landed jobs

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in England after graduating, they made the leap together. They

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got married around Christmas nineteen seventy four in England. Ted

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he had grown out of Teddy by now, got restless again.

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International banking was intellectually stimulating, but it wasn't enough. He

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decided he wanted to be a lawyer, never mind that

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he hadn't gone to law school. He got himself a tutor,

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studied on his own and sat for the English legal exam.

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He passed it and then went to work for a

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British law firm specializing in maritime law.

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I didn't realize you could just go shake the bar

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exam on your own.

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I did not realize that either. I mean, it's just, yeah,

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that's amazing. That must have been incredibly challenging.

246
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Did he pass it the first time? Do you know?

247
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I don't know. When Randy was transferred back to New York,

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they came home together. Ted then studied for and passed

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the New York Bar exam, again without a law degree,

250
00:12:09.159 --> 00:12:12.279
which is almost unheard of, and he joined a prestigious

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Manhattan law firm, but the work felt small to him.

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Junior associates get handed, the routine tasks, the unglamorous cront work,

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and that didn't suit Ted. The long hours and the

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time apart had been wearing on his marriage as well.

255
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He and Randy both had been burning the candle at

256
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both ends and traveling a lot. In nineteen eighty three,

257
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Randy told him that she wanted out. Ted wanted to

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try to save the marriage, but she was resolute. They

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separated and eventually divorced. It was cordial. They promised to

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stay friends, and they did. Ted was thirty four, newly

261
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single and restless as ever. He'd been watching a firm

262
00:12:50.039 --> 00:12:55.759
called Kolberg Cravis Roberts KKR making waves doing leveraged buyouts

263
00:12:55.799 --> 00:12:59.039
of major corporations, and he wanted in on that world.

264
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But first he needed a new apartment on the Upper

265
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east Side. He called a real estate firm, made an

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appointment to see a place, and then blew off the appointment.

267
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The next day his phone rang. It was the realtor,

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Generosa Rand. She was incensed. She told him that he'd

269
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been rude, that he'd wasted her time, and that she

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deserved better. Had felt guilty, but he was also a

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little intrigued. He wasn't used to someone standing up to

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him like that. He apologized and made another appointment. This

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time he kept it, and he was glad he did.

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To understand, Generosa, we have to start. Before she was born,

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her mother, Marie Therese Legay, known to everyone as Babe,

276
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had grown up deeply religious, even spending time in a

277
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convent after high school. Before swinging hard in the other direction.

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She became a party girl with little ambition and even

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00:13:50.360 --> 00:13:54.559
less stability. She married twice, had children from both marriages,

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and neglected them all. It was during her second marriage,

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while separated from her husband, that Babe met a man

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named Generoso at a bar in California. He was Italian, passionate,

283
00:14:06.639 --> 00:14:09.919
and gone in just over a week headed back to Europe,

284
00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.480
but during that week Babe got pregnant. She wrote to

285
00:14:13.519 --> 00:14:18.519
Generosa in Italy multiple times, but he never replied. Generosa

286
00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:22.559
Joe Mary Rand was born in Long Beach, California, in

287
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March nineteen fifty six. Her first name was a feminine

288
00:14:26.279 --> 00:14:29.360
version of her biological father's name, while her last name

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00:14:29.440 --> 00:14:32.799
belonged to Babe's husband at the time. Oh so did

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00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:36.320
he think that Generoso was his daughter?

291
00:14:36.679 --> 00:14:38.639
I don't think so. I think they were separated at

292
00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:39.080
the time.

293
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And how many other kids did Babe have.

294
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I It's not completely clear to me. I think maybe

295
00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:49.039
four before Generosa, but it was, as you can tell,

296
00:14:49.080 --> 00:14:51.320
it was kind of a broken family situation.

297
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Babe loved her little girls, but loving someone and being

298
00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:58.039
present for them are two different things, and Babe seemed

299
00:14:58.120 --> 00:15:02.159
incapable of the latter. Generosa and her older sister Dolly

300
00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:05.519
were left alone often increasingly in the care of others.

301
00:15:05.960 --> 00:15:09.440
When Generosa was five or six years old, an unidentified

302
00:15:09.519 --> 00:15:12.639
male relative began molesting her. He told her it was

303
00:15:12.679 --> 00:15:15.840
their secret. If she told anyone, they wouldn't believe her

304
00:15:16.120 --> 00:15:19.960
and they'd think that she was bad. So Generosa said nothing,

305
00:15:20.360 --> 00:15:24.399
and it kept happening. In nineteen sixty five, Babe found

306
00:15:24.399 --> 00:15:27.240
a lump in her breast, but ignored it, throwing herself

307
00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:30.080
harder into the parties and drinking as if she could

308
00:15:30.120 --> 00:15:33.120
outrun what she knew deep down. By the time she

309
00:15:33.159 --> 00:15:36.559
saw a doctor, it was too late. Generosa was nine,

310
00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:40.919
then ten years old, watching her mother deteriorate. Babe died

311
00:15:40.960 --> 00:15:44.200
in nineteen sixty six, leaving ten year old Generosa to

312
00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:47.960
face the world alone. Around this time, Generosa learned the

313
00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:51.159
truth about her biological father, a secret that had been

314
00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.480
kept from her. The resentment she already felt towards her

315
00:15:54.519 --> 00:15:58.519
mother deepened. She made herself a series of promises. She

316
00:15:58.600 --> 00:16:02.240
would be different. She would be strong, she would have money.

317
00:16:02.720 --> 00:16:05.639
If she ever had children, she would protect them, never

318
00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:08.919
lie to them, and never abandon them. She would be

319
00:16:08.960 --> 00:16:12.360
everything her mother wasn't, she would later tell people, without

320
00:16:12.399 --> 00:16:15.639
a trace of sentimentality, that her mother's death was the

321
00:16:15.679 --> 00:16:19.480
best thing that ever happened to her. Iikes. After Babe's death,

322
00:16:19.600 --> 00:16:23.320
Generosa was passed from family to family. She lived with

323
00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.799
her uncle Ale and his wife for a while, then

324
00:16:25.840 --> 00:16:28.960
to a wealthy family friend in the Laguna Beach area,

325
00:16:29.200 --> 00:16:31.879
where she rode horses and one ribbons and had her

326
00:16:31.960 --> 00:16:34.840
teeth straightened. For a brief time, she felt like a

327
00:16:34.879 --> 00:16:38.039
wealthy girl living on an estate, but by her teen

328
00:16:38.120 --> 00:16:41.600
years she became moody and rebellious, and the family decided

329
00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:44.480
they couldn't handle her anymore. So she moved in with

330
00:16:44.519 --> 00:16:47.799
her half sister Terry, her husband and kids, but they

331
00:16:47.799 --> 00:16:50.720
struggled with her as well, worrying that she was a

332
00:16:50.720 --> 00:16:55.200
bad influence on their younger children. Then, at thirteen, having

333
00:16:55.320 --> 00:16:58.879
now been turned away from four different families, she landed

334
00:16:58.919 --> 00:17:01.759
with a woman named Frank and Thomas in Los Angeles.

335
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So there was no intervention by like the state or no.

336
00:17:07.400 --> 00:17:09.480
You know, I think I think it was not uncommon

337
00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:12.480
in families at this time for people to just be like,

338
00:17:12.799 --> 00:17:15.799
you know, kids to be shuffled around from place to place.

339
00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.160
And I know in my own extended family there are

340
00:17:18.200 --> 00:17:21.480
situations like that, And yeah, there was no she wasn't

341
00:17:21.480 --> 00:17:23.400
in the foster care system or anything like that.

342
00:17:23.880 --> 00:17:26.640
Fran and her husband actually wanted to make Generosa a

343
00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:30.359
permanent part of their family, but Generosa was difficult. She'd

344
00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:34.119
disappeared for hours, sometimes turning up alone in the dark,

345
00:17:34.160 --> 00:17:36.640
in the car, in the garage. She was threatened with

346
00:17:36.720 --> 00:17:39.720
expulsion from the Catholic school where she was enrolled. It

347
00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:43.240
took a direct ultimatum from fran shape up or she'd

348
00:17:43.240 --> 00:17:46.799
be calling the foster care system, and gen Rosa finally

349
00:17:46.839 --> 00:17:49.960
turned things around. She started doing better in school, she

350
00:17:50.119 --> 00:17:53.319
joined the tennis team and poured herself into her art.

351
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But then in nineteen seventy one, her sister Dolly was

352
00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:01.119
killed in a car crash, another devastating blow. Generosa stayed

353
00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:04.160
with Franz family until nineteen seventy five, when she started

354
00:18:04.200 --> 00:18:09.079
college at the University of California, Irvine. She took sculpture, painting,

355
00:18:09.119 --> 00:18:11.960
and photography, and it became clear that she had a

356
00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:15.640
genuine talent for art and design. She graduated in nineteen

357
00:18:15.680 --> 00:18:19.000
eighty one and decided New York was where she needed

358
00:18:19.039 --> 00:18:21.160
to be to make it in the art world. She

359
00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:24.400
packed up and moved east and once she got there,

360
00:18:24.440 --> 00:18:27.640
she began quietly cutting herself off from everyone who had

361
00:18:27.680 --> 00:18:28.599
known her before.

362
00:18:28.960 --> 00:18:32.119
So, regardless of what you will think about Generosa, once

363
00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:34.640
we've told this whole story, you have to feel a

364
00:18:34.680 --> 00:18:37.480
lot of sympathy for her childhood. I mean, it just

365
00:18:37.559 --> 00:18:41.960
sounds like a horrible upbringing, being continuously molested by a relative,

366
00:18:42.319 --> 00:18:45.279
shuffled around from family to family, a mom who was

367
00:18:45.279 --> 00:18:48.559
an alcoholic and really kind of neglectful, and then having

368
00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:51.160
her sister die in a car crash. A really a lot,

369
00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:52.480
a lot to deal with.

370
00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.119
Yeah, and we try in all our cases to get

371
00:18:55.119 --> 00:18:58.160
as much background information as we can about That's a

372
00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:01.519
common theme, right, you don't have a good childhood, it's

373
00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:03.200
really hard to have a good adulthood.

374
00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.039
Yeah. And it's an interesting contrast with Ted's childhood. So

375
00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:08.160
if you look back at, you know, what he went

376
00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:09.960
through as a child, it seemed like he had it

377
00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:12.400
pretty easy. For lack of a better word, I mean,

378
00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:14.599
he was a hard worker, he was driven, but it

379
00:19:14.680 --> 00:19:17.200
just seems like things came pretty easily to him. It

380
00:19:17.200 --> 00:19:19.799
seemed like, you know, I didn't read anything about any

381
00:19:19.880 --> 00:19:23.079
kind of trauma or any thing that happened in his childhood.

382
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:26.039
So very two, very different upbringings.

383
00:19:26.319 --> 00:19:27.960
We'll be back after a break.

384
00:19:34.920 --> 00:19:38.880
While Ted Ammon was a lawyer, he appreciated art and architecture,

385
00:19:39.079 --> 00:19:42.039
and in Generosa he found someone who was immersed in

386
00:19:42.079 --> 00:19:44.720
that world. They had more than that in common. They

387
00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:48.039
were both ambitious and they loved the finer things in life.

388
00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:51.119
Within a month of that first coffee, they were living together.

389
00:19:51.599 --> 00:19:55.160
Ted's family met Generosa and liked her immediately. They thought

390
00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:58.519
she was perfect for him. Fun loving, witty, bright, with

391
00:19:58.599 --> 00:20:03.000
an artistic sensibility that balanced out Ted's more analytical side.

392
00:20:03.359 --> 00:20:06.079
After a string of relationships that hadn't worked out, it

393
00:20:06.119 --> 00:20:08.359
seemed like he had finally found his person.

394
00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:12.279
In college, Generosa studied art and she seemed to really

395
00:20:12.400 --> 00:20:14.799
enjoy that. But now she's working as a real estate agent.

396
00:20:14.920 --> 00:20:17.599
She was still pursuing her art, But I think anyone

397
00:20:17.599 --> 00:20:19.200
who is going into something.

398
00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:21.799
Like that, especially in New York YA, something got.

399
00:20:21.599 --> 00:20:24.720
To pay the bills. They were serious quickly, but Ted

400
00:20:24.880 --> 00:20:27.240
wasn't ready to walk down the aisle again. He had

401
00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:29.920
been through a failed marriage and wasn't ready to jump

402
00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:34.039
back in just yet. Generosa felt differently, though. In February

403
00:20:34.079 --> 00:20:37.279
nineteen eighty four, she gave him an ultimatum either they

404
00:20:37.279 --> 00:20:40.519
were getting married or it was over. Ted told her

405
00:20:40.559 --> 00:20:43.200
he wasn't ready, and just like that they broke up.

406
00:20:43.400 --> 00:20:44.480
How long were they dating?

407
00:20:45.000 --> 00:20:47.240
I think it was just a few months at that point.

408
00:20:47.440 --> 00:20:49.599
And one more question, what is their age difference?

409
00:20:50.079 --> 00:20:53.079
Ted was about seven years older than her. Okay. After

410
00:20:53.119 --> 00:20:55.319
they broke up, Ted made a move that he had

411
00:20:55.359 --> 00:20:57.720
been thinking about for a while. He left his law

412
00:20:57.720 --> 00:21:01.519
firm and went to work for KKR Bulberg Cravis Roberts,

413
00:21:01.720 --> 00:21:03.920
the firm that he had been watching from a distance

414
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:07.359
for years. He threw himself into the world of leveraged

415
00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:11.000
buyouts and corporate takeovers with everything that he had. He

416
00:21:11.079 --> 00:21:14.599
also started dating again a series of women. Then, in

417
00:21:14.680 --> 00:21:19.200
October nineteen eighty four, fate intervened. Ted and Generosa almost

418
00:21:19.359 --> 00:21:22.519
literally bumped into each other at the Metropolitan Museum of

419
00:21:22.640 --> 00:21:25.680
Art on Fifth Avenue. Both of them were surprised, and

420
00:21:25.880 --> 00:21:28.960
both of them were happy, and Generosa made it clear

421
00:21:29.119 --> 00:21:32.839
almost immediately that her position hadn't changed. She wanted to

422
00:21:32.880 --> 00:21:36.599
get married this time. Ted didn't hesitate. He was ready.

423
00:21:37.160 --> 00:21:40.960
Before the wedding, set for February second, nineteen eighty six,

424
00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:44.519
Generosa and Ted took a trip out to California. By

425
00:21:44.519 --> 00:21:47.319
that time, she had already cut off contact with most

426
00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:50.079
of her relations, but there was still her Uncle Al

427
00:21:50.160 --> 00:21:54.000
and his wife. She introduced Ted, but then before the wedding,

428
00:21:54.200 --> 00:21:57.359
Generosa cut off all contact with Uncle Al as well,

429
00:21:57.599 --> 00:22:00.359
and never spoke to him again. Uncle Al's told the

430
00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:04.279
family he had absolutely no idea why he was blindsided,

431
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:07.279
no fight, no falling out that he knew of. She

432
00:22:07.400 --> 00:22:10.359
simply disappeared from his life, the same way she had

433
00:22:10.359 --> 00:22:13.640
disappeared from so many others. At the wedding, there were

434
00:22:13.640 --> 00:22:17.119
only a handful of people from Generosa's life in California.

435
00:22:17.480 --> 00:22:20.279
One of them was supposed to be her cousin Al Junior,

436
00:22:20.359 --> 00:22:24.119
whose wife Sally, had been Generosa's best friend before moving

437
00:22:24.119 --> 00:22:26.400
to New York, but Sally was in the middle of

438
00:22:26.440 --> 00:22:30.119
a difficult pregnancy and couldn't travel. Generosa was not at

439
00:22:30.119 --> 00:22:34.559
all understanding. In fact, she was furious. During the wedding rehearsal,

440
00:22:34.640 --> 00:22:38.039
she lit into Al Junior, telling him it was unforgivable

441
00:22:38.079 --> 00:22:41.680
how much they had disrespected her. Al Junior was stunned.

442
00:22:41.880 --> 00:22:45.079
He stormed out and flew back to California, feeling a

443
00:22:45.119 --> 00:22:47.960
pang of sympathy for Ted Ammon. The man had no

444
00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:52.279
idea what he was getting into. Ted and Generosa Ammon were,

445
00:22:52.319 --> 00:22:55.400
by any measure, a power couple. Tad was now making

446
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:58.720
serious money at KKR, and they lived like it. They

447
00:22:58.720 --> 00:23:02.200
threw lavish parties at their Manhattan townhouse. Ted had a

448
00:23:02.240 --> 00:23:06.359
limousine and a driver named Milton. Generosa hired a housekeeper,

449
00:23:06.440 --> 00:23:09.920
a personal assistant, a butler, and a cook. Ted was

450
00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:13.240
very particular about what went into his body. He insisted

451
00:23:13.279 --> 00:23:16.559
on healthy, organic meals and banned junk food from the

452
00:23:16.599 --> 00:23:21.759
house entirely. I know, shocking. Generosa ran the household and

453
00:23:21.839 --> 00:23:24.839
the staff. With the domestic side of their lives handled,

454
00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:28.000
she was free to pursue her art and photography, but

455
00:23:28.119 --> 00:23:31.839
she discovered that what she really loved was renovating, furnishing,

456
00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.759
and decorating their home. It turned out this was her

457
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:38.720
true calling. She also became deeply involved in their neighborhood.

458
00:23:38.880 --> 00:23:41.759
If a store left its garbage out and attracted rats,

459
00:23:41.920 --> 00:23:45.079
Generosa was on it. If anyone did anything that, in

460
00:23:45.119 --> 00:23:49.359
her view, detracted from the area, she organized, protested, and

461
00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:53.240
pushed back. People appreciated her passion and her drive, but

462
00:23:53.319 --> 00:23:56.039
they also noticed that if you challenged her or got

463
00:23:56.039 --> 00:23:58.480
in her way, she was quick to lose her cool.

464
00:23:59.039 --> 00:24:03.000
When the townhouse was finally finished, to her satisfaction, Generosa

465
00:24:03.039 --> 00:24:06.240
needed a new project. She found one north of the city,

466
00:24:06.400 --> 00:24:09.519
in the colonial town of Bedford, New York, a historic

467
00:24:09.599 --> 00:24:12.960
home that she bought and proceeded to gut completely. She

468
00:24:13.079 --> 00:24:16.920
hired contractors and directed every step of the renovation herself,

469
00:24:17.240 --> 00:24:20.839
then decorated the finished product from scratch. The result was

470
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:25.640
impressive by anyone's standards. The Bedford House became her summer retreat,

471
00:24:25.880 --> 00:24:29.920
a place to entertain, to breathe, to ride. Generosa kept

472
00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:33.119
her own horses there and competed as an amateur jumper

473
00:24:33.400 --> 00:24:36.519
in shows up and down the East Coast. The nineteen

474
00:24:36.599 --> 00:24:39.680
eighties were, depending on who you ask, either the golden

475
00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:43.279
age of American capitalism or a decade of greed, and

476
00:24:43.359 --> 00:24:46.400
Ted Ammon was right in the middle of it. At KKR,

477
00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:49.799
he worked tirelessly. The firm was at the forefront of

478
00:24:49.839 --> 00:24:54.079
a financial phenomenon that was reshaping corporate America. The leveraged

479
00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:58.319
buyout LBOs as they were known, became the defining financial

480
00:24:58.400 --> 00:25:01.759
instrument of the decade, and and understanding them helps explain

481
00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:04.720
how men like ted Amin built the kind of wealth

482
00:25:04.759 --> 00:25:07.480
that they did. Here's how it worked. A group of

483
00:25:07.559 --> 00:25:11.839
financial raiders would identify a target, a corporation whose stock

484
00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:16.519
and assets were for whatever reason undervalued. Ideally, they'd win

485
00:25:16.599 --> 00:25:20.400
over the company's board members in advance, securing a cooperative,

486
00:25:20.599 --> 00:25:24.640
uncontested buyout and avoiding a messy bidding war. Then they

487
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:28.319
would secure massive financing from banks to fund and offer

488
00:25:28.359 --> 00:25:31.599
to the company's stockholders, sweetening the deal with what were

489
00:25:31.640 --> 00:25:35.400
known as junk bonds, high risk, high yield instruments that

490
00:25:35.559 --> 00:25:39.480
made these enormous transactions possible in the first place. Once

491
00:25:39.480 --> 00:25:42.279
they controlled the company, the raiders would go to work

492
00:25:42.640 --> 00:25:48.279
selling off assets, divesting divisions, consolidating operations, and slashing costs.

493
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:53.079
That last part usually meant one thing in practice, mass layoffs.

494
00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:56.480
Loyal employees who had spent their careers at these companies

495
00:25:56.680 --> 00:25:59.519
found themselves out of work so the balance sheet could

496
00:25:59.559 --> 00:26:02.960
look better. At the end of the process, stockholders made

497
00:26:02.960 --> 00:26:06.000
a nice profit, bankers made a bigger one, and the

498
00:26:06.119 --> 00:26:10.079
raiders made an enormous amount of money from the liquidated assets.

499
00:26:10.440 --> 00:26:15.160
Everyone won except the workers. The ethics of leveraged buyouts

500
00:26:15.200 --> 00:26:18.839
became a national debate. Hollywood weighed in. The movie Wall

501
00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:22.160
Street came out in nineteen eighty seven with Michael Douglas

502
00:26:22.200 --> 00:26:25.680
playing Gordon Gecko, whose philosophy could be boiled down to

503
00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:30.039
three words, greed is Good. Another film, Other People's Money,

504
00:26:30.160 --> 00:26:34.119
explored similar territory. The culture was wrestling in real time

505
00:26:34.200 --> 00:26:37.839
with what exactly these corporate raiders were doing and whether

506
00:26:37.880 --> 00:26:42.599
it was something to celebrate or condemn. Then, on October nineteenth,

507
00:26:42.759 --> 00:26:46.720
nineteen eighty seven, Black Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average

508
00:26:46.799 --> 00:26:49.799
dropped five hundred and eight points, or twenty two percent,

509
00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:52.880
in a single day. It was the largest single day

510
00:26:52.920 --> 00:26:56.119
percentage crash in history. For some of the big players.

511
00:26:56.160 --> 00:26:58.640
It was a wake up call. For others. It made

512
00:26:58.839 --> 00:27:02.799
LBOs look even more attractive, a way to make serious money.

513
00:27:03.000 --> 00:27:06.319
Even when the broader market was in free fall. KKR

514
00:27:06.400 --> 00:27:10.079
kept moving. The deal that defined the era and cemented

515
00:27:10.160 --> 00:27:13.480
tad Amman's place in the history of American finance was

516
00:27:13.559 --> 00:27:18.759
KKR's nineteen eighty nine takeover of RJR Nabisco, the conglomerate

517
00:27:18.799 --> 00:27:22.279
that included the Reynolds Tobacco Company. The price tag was

518
00:27:22.400 --> 00:27:26.440
thirty one billion, dollars, making it the largest leveraged buyout

519
00:27:26.480 --> 00:27:29.880
in history at that time. It was later chronicled in

520
00:27:29.920 --> 00:27:32.920
a best selling book called Barbarians at the Gate. Tad

521
00:27:32.960 --> 00:27:36.160
Amman was mentioned in it multiple times. The book was

522
00:27:36.200 --> 00:27:39.880
subsequently made into an HBO movie starring James Garner.

523
00:27:40.559 --> 00:27:43.279
James Garner loved James Garner, my dad.

524
00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:47.279
Yeah. At some point during their years in the Manhattan townhouse,

525
00:27:47.480 --> 00:27:50.480
Generosa was home alone after the staff had left for

526
00:27:50.519 --> 00:27:53.559
the day. When the doorbell rang. Two men stood at

527
00:27:53.599 --> 00:27:57.160
the door, presenting themselves as delivery men. When she opened

528
00:27:57.200 --> 00:27:59.880
the door, they forced their way in. They grabbed her,

529
00:28:00.160 --> 00:28:02.759
tied her up, blindfolded her, and locked her in the

530
00:28:02.880 --> 00:28:06.039
utility room in the basement while they ransacked the house.

531
00:28:06.440 --> 00:28:09.559
She was trapped there, terrified and alone in the dark,

532
00:28:09.799 --> 00:28:12.960
until Ted came home and found her. The robbery left

533
00:28:13.039 --> 00:28:17.680
Generosa deeply traumatized. Ted responded by turning the townhouse into

534
00:28:17.720 --> 00:28:21.680
a fortress, multiple locks, surveillance cameras, a state of the

535
00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:26.200
art alarm system, and armed security guards. For months afterward,

536
00:28:26.480 --> 00:28:29.640
Generosa was afraid to be alone. The perpetrators of the

537
00:28:29.720 --> 00:28:31.079
robbery were never found.

538
00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:35.400
That sounds like every woman's worst nightmare absolutely. Ted bought

539
00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:38.759
Generosa a huge loft in Soho where she could work

540
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:42.039
on her art without distraction. He loved what she created

541
00:28:42.160 --> 00:28:46.480
and was one of her most enthusiastic supporters. She held

542
00:28:46.519 --> 00:28:50.720
several shows, but the art world took little notice. Ted, meanwhile,

543
00:28:50.920 --> 00:28:54.799
was burning energy in every direction. When he wasn't working,

544
00:28:54.880 --> 00:28:58.960
he was jogging, cycling, sailing, or skiing. He approached his

545
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:02.240
hobbies with the same drive and determination he brought to

546
00:29:02.279 --> 00:29:05.359
everything else. The one thing had wanted that he didn't

547
00:29:05.440 --> 00:29:09.319
yet have was children. Generosa was more ambivalent, but she

548
00:29:09.519 --> 00:29:13.079
was willing. She stopped birth control, but they had no luck.

549
00:29:13.359 --> 00:29:17.640
They consulted a fertility specialist and tried artificial insemination, but

550
00:29:17.720 --> 00:29:21.799
that didn't work either. Eventually, they turned to adoption, working

551
00:29:21.839 --> 00:29:25.640
with a firm that specialized in international placements. In nineteen

552
00:29:25.720 --> 00:29:29.160
ninety two, they adopted twins from Ukraine, a boy named

553
00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:33.599
Gregory who everyone called Grego, and a girl they named Alexa.

554
00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:36.119
The children were two years old when they came home

555
00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:39.799
and spoke only Russian, but they learned English quickly. The

556
00:29:39.920 --> 00:29:44.079
children became Generosa's new project. She hired a nanny, bringing

557
00:29:44.119 --> 00:29:47.759
the household staff to five Grego and Alexa were beautiful,

558
00:29:47.799 --> 00:29:51.839
well behaved, impeccably dressed, and enrolled in the finest private

559
00:29:51.880 --> 00:29:56.759
schools in Manhattan. Whatever Generosa had lacked as a child's stability,

560
00:29:56.920 --> 00:30:01.400
money attention belonging her children would have abundance. She had

561
00:30:01.400 --> 00:30:04.119
made herself that promise a long time ago, and she

562
00:30:04.200 --> 00:30:08.440
intended to keep it. Generosa believed that KKR was holding

563
00:30:08.440 --> 00:30:12.440
Ted back, that his talents weren't being properly recognized, and

564
00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:15.200
she pushed him to strike out on his own. Ted

565
00:30:15.240 --> 00:30:18.759
had his doubts KKR had made him wealthy after all,

566
00:30:18.960 --> 00:30:22.519
but Generosa was persistent. She also took matters into her

567
00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:25.880
own hands and ways that made Ted uncomfortable. She began

568
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:30.079
spreading rumors about the firm's co founder, Henry Cravis and

569
00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:33.240
his wife, airing their private business to anyone in town

570
00:30:33.279 --> 00:30:36.279
who would listen. That kind of gossip travels fast in

571
00:30:36.359 --> 00:30:40.720
Manhattan social circles. It embarrassed Ted and strained his relationship

572
00:30:40.880 --> 00:30:44.759
with one of the most powerful men in finance. Eventually,

573
00:30:44.880 --> 00:30:48.440
Ted decided to leave KKR. When he told Cravis and

574
00:30:48.480 --> 00:30:52.359
the others, they were not pleased. What happened next surprised

575
00:30:52.359 --> 00:30:56.200
almost everyone. With no prior experience in the industry. He

576
00:30:56.279 --> 00:31:00.160
moved into the printing business, specifically the business of printing

577
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:04.000
newspaper circulars. It seemed like an unlikely pivot for a

578
00:31:04.039 --> 00:31:06.480
man who had been operating at the highest levels of

579
00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:09.960
Wall Street, but it was a smart move. His company,

580
00:31:10.279 --> 00:31:14.519
Big Flower Press, grew fast. Before long it was generating

581
00:31:14.680 --> 00:31:17.960
one point nine billion dollars a year in revenues.

582
00:31:18.119 --> 00:31:21.640
Schools to show you sometimes the most unglamorous sounding businesses,

583
00:31:21.720 --> 00:31:23.960
oh for sure, So it can be so profitable.

584
00:31:24.119 --> 00:31:26.279
Ted also had the foresight to get in early on

585
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:31.400
the Internet and telecommunications boom, investing aggressively as those industries

586
00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:35.400
were just finding their footing. The returns were enormous. At

587
00:31:35.400 --> 00:31:38.920
his peak, Ted Ammon was worth an estimated four hundred

588
00:31:38.960 --> 00:31:42.680
million dollars. Seven years after founding it, he sold Big

589
00:31:42.720 --> 00:31:46.119
Flower Press for a substantial profit. He then launched a

590
00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:50.640
boutique finance firm called Chancery Lane Capital, through which he

591
00:31:50.720 --> 00:31:55.559
planned to do his own takeover deals, competing directly with KKR.

592
00:31:55.880 --> 00:31:58.839
So enough time has probably passed that it's not yeah

593
00:31:59.039 --> 00:32:01.599
noncompete clause, Yeah, I think so. Now that he was

594
00:32:01.640 --> 00:32:04.759
a father, Ted turned his attention to making sure his

595
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.359
family would be taken care of no matter what happened

596
00:32:07.359 --> 00:32:09.920
to him. He drew up a will that established trust

597
00:32:09.960 --> 00:32:13.920
funds for Grego and Alexa. Generosa was named co executor

598
00:32:13.960 --> 00:32:16.839
of the estate along with the bank. If Ted were

599
00:32:16.880 --> 00:32:21.279
to die, she would inherit virtually everything. While Ted was

600
00:32:21.319 --> 00:32:24.599
making his way in business, Generosa established a business of

601
00:32:24.640 --> 00:32:27.599
her own. She sold the house that she had refurnished

602
00:32:27.599 --> 00:32:30.640
in Bedford and bought another in the Hamptons, a house

603
00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:34.000
that needed serious work. She gutted it, rebuilt it to

604
00:32:34.079 --> 00:32:37.680
her exacting standards, decorated it, and then sold it for

605
00:32:37.720 --> 00:32:41.400
a tidy five hundred thousand dollars profit. Ted was impressed.

606
00:32:41.680 --> 00:32:45.519
Generosa had a genuine talent for this. She took the

607
00:32:45.559 --> 00:32:48.759
profits and rolled them into her next acquisition, a former

608
00:32:48.920 --> 00:32:52.079
car dealership in East Hampton that she bought for one

609
00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:55.319
point seventy five million dollars. Her plan was to tear

610
00:32:55.359 --> 00:32:58.799
it down and develop it into a large commercial property,

611
00:32:59.000 --> 00:33:01.920
with the village of East Hampton had other ideas. She

612
00:33:02.039 --> 00:33:04.400
ended up at war with a village and her plans

613
00:33:04.440 --> 00:33:09.160
were delayed indefinitely. So did she level the car dealership?

614
00:33:09.319 --> 00:33:10.119
I think so? Yeah?

615
00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:15.480
Okay, that would be really hard to right. Her next undertaking,

616
00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:18.200
the one that would consume her completely, was a house

617
00:33:18.240 --> 00:33:21.440
she purchased in East Hampton for two point seven million dollars.

618
00:33:21.880 --> 00:33:24.480
It was a fixer upper, two blocks from the ocean

619
00:33:24.640 --> 00:33:28.319
and one block from Jerry Seinfeld's sixteen million dollar estate.

620
00:33:28.720 --> 00:33:31.960
Jennerosa's goal was to create a home so beautiful, so

621
00:33:32.160 --> 00:33:35.880
perfect and impressive that it would be written about in magazines.

622
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:39.960
Imagine buying a fixer upper for two point seven million dollars, Well.

623
00:33:39.720 --> 00:33:42.880
East Hampton's a different, whole, different world. The six thousand

624
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:46.759
square foot house would be essentially rebuilt from the ground up.

625
00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:50.039
Some of the key features included a dining room with

626
00:33:50.079 --> 00:33:53.160
a beamed ceiling, a state of the art kitchen, a

627
00:33:53.240 --> 00:33:56.359
sun room with two walls of glass, a master suite

628
00:33:56.359 --> 00:33:59.880
with an adjoining study for tad, a playroom for the children,

629
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:02.400
a wine cellar in the basement to how is Ted's

630
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:05.799
collection of world class wines, an eight thousand square foot

631
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:08.960
pond with a bridge over the middle, an in ground

632
00:34:08.960 --> 00:34:12.280
pool with a cabana, five sets of washers and dryers

633
00:34:12.320 --> 00:34:15.039
so the household staff could turn over all the laundry

634
00:34:15.159 --> 00:34:18.320
quickly and be gone, and there was one more feature

635
00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:22.320
that reflected Generos's fears since the earlier home invasion, a

636
00:34:22.360 --> 00:34:25.599
secret save room equipped with a telephone and a panic

637
00:34:25.639 --> 00:34:29.960
alarm wired directly to the Easthampton Police. She threw herself

638
00:34:29.960 --> 00:34:32.719
into the project with an intensity that began to alarm

639
00:34:32.760 --> 00:34:35.400
the people working for her. She was up before dawn

640
00:34:35.440 --> 00:34:39.000
every morning, writing notes for her architect and contractors about

641
00:34:39.039 --> 00:34:42.320
every detail, no matter how small. When something went wrong

642
00:34:42.480 --> 00:34:44.519
or when she simply decided that she didn't like what

643
00:34:44.559 --> 00:34:48.159
had been done, her fury was immediate. One day, she

644
00:34:48.199 --> 00:34:51.639
summoned her architect to inspect a single light switch plate.

645
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:55.679
The screws, she insisted, were a failure of discipline. They

646
00:34:55.719 --> 00:34:59.880
needed to be aligned either perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal

647
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:03.760
without exception. As he looked at the microscopic tilt of

648
00:35:03.800 --> 00:35:07.480
the metal, the architect wondered whether Generosa herself might have

649
00:35:07.559 --> 00:35:11.280
had a screw loose. When the architect's mother became terminally

650
00:35:11.320 --> 00:35:13.800
ill and he told Generosa he needed to go be

651
00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:17.360
with her, she had no sympathy. She demanded phone numbers

652
00:35:17.400 --> 00:35:19.360
where she could reach him at all times, and she

653
00:35:19.400 --> 00:35:22.440
called repeatedly, wanting to know when he'd be back. When

654
00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:25.599
he finally returned, a mutual friend told him what Generosa

655
00:35:25.840 --> 00:35:28.519
had sunned while he was gone. Hasn't anyone in this

656
00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:29.960
family ever died before?

657
00:35:30.400 --> 00:35:32.320
Oh it's really.

658
00:35:34.119 --> 00:35:37.119
A landscaper working on the property had a similar experience

659
00:35:37.360 --> 00:35:39.880
when she had to postpone an appointment because her own

660
00:35:39.920 --> 00:35:44.280
mother was seriously ill. Generosa was enraged. She told her, no,

661
00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:47.519
you have to come. I don't understand what's wrong with you.

662
00:35:47.599 --> 00:35:50.960
People are born and people die. My mother abandoned us,

663
00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:53.840
and I grew up in an orphanage. I struggled to

664
00:35:53.880 --> 00:35:55.960
make it to where I am today. But I am

665
00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:57.599
all alone and I made it.

666
00:35:58.039 --> 00:35:58.480
Oh boy.

667
00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:03.119
The landscaper eventually quit after one unreasonable demand too many.

668
00:36:03.440 --> 00:36:07.119
Generosa went berserk. She contacted a law firm and threatened

669
00:36:07.159 --> 00:36:10.639
to sue her, intent on putting her out of business entirely.

670
00:36:11.159 --> 00:36:14.360
One weekend, a contractor planted six hundred tulips at the

671
00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:19.320
Hampton property. They agreed upon color exactly as specified. The

672
00:36:19.400 --> 00:36:22.320
following weekend, gen Rosa was out in the garden ripping

673
00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:25.039
up every single one of the tulips. They were the

674
00:36:25.039 --> 00:36:28.320
wrong color, she said. The house was finally finished by

675
00:36:28.400 --> 00:36:31.800
Memorial Day weekend of nineteen ninety five. It was, by

676
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:35.280
any objective measure, stunning, the kind of home that looked

677
00:36:35.320 --> 00:36:39.000
like it belonged on the cover of Architectural Digest. Gener

678
00:36:39.079 --> 00:36:42.519
Rosa refused to pay her architect's final invoices. She was

679
00:36:42.639 --> 00:36:45.360
angry because she heard that he was telling people that

680
00:36:45.519 --> 00:36:49.360
he had designed the house, which she did. She demanded

681
00:36:49.360 --> 00:36:52.719
he stop wanting the credit for herself. Yike, So it

682
00:36:52.719 --> 00:36:55.679
sounds like this project really literally made her crazy.

683
00:36:56.119 --> 00:36:58.920
Well, I think maybe she was already a little crazy beforehand,

684
00:36:59.000 --> 00:37:00.480
but it certainly this is like.

685
00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:04.000
An intensity that you hadn't really told us about. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

686
00:37:04.360 --> 00:37:05.920
we'll be back after a break.

687
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:16.159
Ted had always taken Generosa's side when she went to

688
00:37:16.199 --> 00:37:21.280
war with architects, contractors, landscapers, designers or friends. He was

689
00:37:21.320 --> 00:37:23.920
always there supporting her, but at the same time doing

690
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:27.239
damage control and trying to smooth things over. He knew

691
00:37:27.280 --> 00:37:29.599
about the abuse that she had suffered as a child,

692
00:37:29.679 --> 00:37:32.719
and it made him sympathetic. But by the mid nineties,

693
00:37:32.960 --> 00:37:36.400
his patience was beginning to fray. Money he felt was

694
00:37:36.480 --> 00:37:39.159
changing her. The wealth that was supposed to make their

695
00:37:39.159 --> 00:37:42.920
lives easier seemed instead to be making Generosa more bitter.

696
00:37:43.360 --> 00:37:46.400
Their friends were growing tired of her volatility, and Ted

697
00:37:46.599 --> 00:37:48.960
was growing tired of being the one left to pick

698
00:37:49.039 --> 00:37:51.960
up the pieces after she blew something up. There were

699
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:56.239
other tensions too. Ted was a committed health nut, organic food,

700
00:37:56.480 --> 00:38:01.719
no junk, no exceptions. Generosa secretly indulged in cigarettes and sweets,

701
00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:05.480
but in Ted's absence, she enforced his dietary laws in

702
00:38:05.519 --> 00:38:09.920
a terrifying way. One afternoon, while Ted was traveling, Generosa

703
00:38:09.960 --> 00:38:12.960
had some friends over for lunch. When Alexa reached for

704
00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:17.119
a cookie. After being told no, Generosa snapped. She seized

705
00:38:17.119 --> 00:38:20.400
her daughter and began shoving cookies into her mouth, screaming,

706
00:38:20.639 --> 00:38:22.800
is this what you wanted? Do you want more? The

707
00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:26.599
guests sat paralyzed in horror. Ted had seen the East

708
00:38:26.639 --> 00:38:30.000
Hampton project coming to an end and dreaded what would follow.

709
00:38:30.360 --> 00:38:33.840
He knew that Generosa needed a project. Without one, he

710
00:38:33.960 --> 00:38:37.159
feared she would sink into a deep depression. He gently

711
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:41.280
suggested she see a psychiatrist, but she wasn't interested. In

712
00:38:41.360 --> 00:38:44.320
Generosa's mind, she had dealt with her past a long

713
00:38:44.360 --> 00:38:47.239
time ago by cutting everyone from that time out of

714
00:38:47.280 --> 00:38:51.000
her life. She didn't have problems other people had problems

715
00:38:51.559 --> 00:38:55.159
with the East Hampton House finished, she began inserting herself

716
00:38:55.159 --> 00:38:58.719
into Ted's professional life. She set up her own voicemail

717
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:01.920
within his company without telling him. He found out and

718
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:05.639
was fuming. She told people in their social circle that

719
00:39:05.679 --> 00:39:09.480
she was the one making Ted's important decisions. Every morning,

720
00:39:09.679 --> 00:39:12.360
she handed him a note listing who he should call,

721
00:39:12.599 --> 00:39:15.000
who he should meet, and what he should do that day.

722
00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:19.239
Ted already had a highly capable executive assistant. He didn't

723
00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.199
need another one. He would either ignore the notes or

724
00:39:22.280 --> 00:39:25.320
try to placate her. He called his sister Sandy and

725
00:39:25.400 --> 00:39:29.039
told her he was miserable. He was thinking about leaving Generosa,

726
00:39:29.119 --> 00:39:33.440
he said. Generosa also called Ted's sister, complaining that Ted

727
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:37.559
had become cold and distant. They tried marriage counseling, went

728
00:39:37.559 --> 00:39:41.280
to a few sessions, and then stopped. Ted started flirting

729
00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:44.199
with other women and found himself wondering what it would

730
00:39:44.199 --> 00:39:47.119
feel like to be single again. At a parent teacher

731
00:39:47.159 --> 00:39:50.400
event at the children's school one evening, Ted was chatting

732
00:39:50.440 --> 00:39:53.920
with another mother about the kids and the school. Generosa

733
00:39:54.039 --> 00:39:57.639
watched from across the room. Then she walked over and,

734
00:39:57.880 --> 00:40:00.880
in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear, ordered

735
00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:03.960
the woman to stop flirting with her husband. The room

736
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:07.199
went quiet. Some people assumed it had to be a joke.

737
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:10.039
It was so out of place that it didn't seem real,

738
00:40:10.280 --> 00:40:11.119
But it.

739
00:40:11.159 --> 00:40:14.639
Was so ted. Knew that her major project was over.

740
00:40:14.880 --> 00:40:18.480
She had a lot of skills and talents. Why didn't

741
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:20.679
he want her to work with him? I know the answer,

742
00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:22.400
but I want you to answer it anyway.

743
00:40:22.559 --> 00:40:24.880
Well, I think her talents and skills were in the

744
00:40:24.920 --> 00:40:28.880
area of remodeling homes and refurnishing homes. So I don't know, if.

745
00:40:28.760 --> 00:40:32.079
You know, well her organization skills would carry over to

746
00:40:32.159 --> 00:40:33.199
a lot of other jobs.

747
00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:34.280
Yeah, maybe, But.

748
00:40:34.440 --> 00:40:37.360
I'm not defending her. But if you started out on

749
00:40:37.400 --> 00:40:40.000
your you know, your own business journey, I would definitely

750
00:40:40.039 --> 00:40:42.320
want to be a part of it, would you you know?

751
00:40:42.440 --> 00:40:46.599
I would just like business podcast. This podcast originally was

752
00:40:46.639 --> 00:40:48.239
going to be just you, and then I always no,

753
00:40:48.320 --> 00:40:52.000
I was do you know what I'm saying though, Like,

754
00:40:52.079 --> 00:40:54.679
if you're married, you know your partner should be a

755
00:40:54.679 --> 00:40:55.320
part of your.

756
00:40:55.559 --> 00:40:58.199
Yeah, I agree, but I think everyone, I don't know,

757
00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:01.400
everyone's different, and maybe you know, by that point, maybe

758
00:41:01.440 --> 00:41:04.159
he felt like they wouldn't really work well together, And

759
00:41:04.400 --> 00:41:06.400
it sounds like he was getting frustrated by a lot

760
00:41:06.440 --> 00:41:09.760
of things with her. So there was an investment banker

761
00:41:09.800 --> 00:41:13.920
at Ted's firm named Lorie Finkel, five years younger than Generosa.

762
00:41:14.280 --> 00:41:16.559
Ted couldn't quite hide the way he looked at her

763
00:41:16.599 --> 00:41:21.280
in social situations. Generosa noticed immediately, and the jealousy that

764
00:41:21.360 --> 00:41:24.559
had always been there became more acute. By the summer

765
00:41:24.599 --> 00:41:27.239
of nineteen ninety eight, the marriage was strained to the

766
00:41:27.280 --> 00:41:31.519
breaking point. Generosa became convinced that Ted was having an affair.

767
00:41:31.960 --> 00:41:36.079
She consulted a psychic, who confirmed her suspicions. Ted denied it,

768
00:41:36.280 --> 00:41:39.719
but he was lying. During one fight over the phone,

769
00:41:39.840 --> 00:41:43.079
Generosa told him, I'll have you killed. She sounded like

770
00:41:43.159 --> 00:41:46.800
she meant it. Ted told an associate about the threat afterwards,

771
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:50.440
shaking his head. Generosa, he said, was out of her mind.

772
00:41:50.880 --> 00:41:52.679
It's hard to argue with the psychic.

773
00:41:53.400 --> 00:41:54.639
I know she confirmed it well.

774
00:41:54.679 --> 00:41:56.400
The psychic said, you're having an affair.

775
00:41:56.599 --> 00:41:58.719
It must be true, and it turned out it was true.

776
00:41:58.840 --> 00:42:01.159
In the midst of all this, the Internet bubble that

777
00:42:01.199 --> 00:42:04.280
had made so many people wealthy was beginning to deflate.

778
00:42:04.599 --> 00:42:09.239
Ted's net worth was shrinking, not catastrophically, but the trajectory

779
00:42:09.400 --> 00:42:12.559
was clear. He knew a divorce from Generosa would be

780
00:42:12.599 --> 00:42:16.480
devastating financially. He needed time and he needed a plan.

781
00:42:17.039 --> 00:42:19.400
Jeffally, he had plenty of money, I know.

782
00:42:19.800 --> 00:42:22.239
So you know when you read about people that are

783
00:42:22.320 --> 00:42:25.800
this wealthy, it is mind boggling in some ways. It's like, yeah,

784
00:42:25.800 --> 00:42:27.960
you could get by with you know, ten percent of

785
00:42:27.960 --> 00:42:31.679
what you had, But they think about things differently. Generosa

786
00:42:31.719 --> 00:42:34.719
helped inspire his plan. When she began talking about moving

787
00:42:34.800 --> 00:42:38.079
to London, Ted decided to lean into it. He would

788
00:42:38.159 --> 00:42:40.920
set her up there, a luxury flat in the city

789
00:42:41.079 --> 00:42:44.280
and a beautiful home in the English countryside. She would

790
00:42:44.320 --> 00:42:47.559
have new staff, new homes to gut and rebuild, and

791
00:42:47.679 --> 00:42:51.440
new projects to consume her and Ted would commute using

792
00:42:51.480 --> 00:42:54.800
his New York business as cover, spending time there with Lori.

793
00:42:55.400 --> 00:42:58.920
What Generosa didn't know was that his girlfriend was pregnant.

794
00:42:59.280 --> 00:43:02.719
Generosa jumped at the idea of London. Ted found a

795
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:06.559
manor home in Surrey called Coverwood, on six million dollars

796
00:43:06.599 --> 00:43:10.440
worth of English countryside. It was a huge estate, costing

797
00:43:10.480 --> 00:43:13.880
one hundred thousand dollars a year just to maintain. The

798
00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:17.239
children took to their new life immediately. They settled into

799
00:43:17.280 --> 00:43:21.119
an exclusive private school in London, made friends and thrived.

800
00:43:21.440 --> 00:43:25.239
Grego and Alexa took up tennis and cricket. Alexa, following

801
00:43:25.280 --> 00:43:28.280
in her mother's footsteps, took up horse riding. Sounds like

802
00:43:28.320 --> 00:43:31.199
the kids were very adaptable, you know, coming from they

803
00:43:31.199 --> 00:43:33.920
came from the Ukraine. Obviously they were only two years old,

804
00:43:34.000 --> 00:43:37.119
but they were in an orphanage in the Ukraine. Then

805
00:43:37.159 --> 00:43:40.519
they you know, became wealthy essentially coming to the US.

806
00:43:40.599 --> 00:43:42.920
Now they're going to England and they're taking up cricket

807
00:43:42.960 --> 00:43:47.960
and tennis and things like that. Yeah, yeah, totally. Generosa,

808
00:43:48.039 --> 00:43:50.480
with two new homes to remake from the ground up,

809
00:43:50.559 --> 00:43:54.559
seemed happy again, and Ted seemed relieved. Back in New York,

810
00:43:54.760 --> 00:43:58.159
Ted quietly built his parallel life. He joined the board

811
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:02.000
of Jazz at Lincoln Center, later becoming its chairman, working

812
00:44:02.039 --> 00:44:07.360
closely with the center's artistic director, the celebrated trumpeter Wynton Marsalis.

813
00:44:07.400 --> 00:44:10.320
It gave him another legitimate reason to be in New York,

814
00:44:10.800 --> 00:44:14.239
but Generosa grew increasingly frustrated with how much time Ted

815
00:44:14.320 --> 00:44:17.639
spent across the Atlantic. She pushed for him to retire

816
00:44:17.920 --> 00:44:20.000
to come and be present with her and the kids

817
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:23.039
in England. But Ted was fifty years old and had

818
00:44:23.079 --> 00:44:27.039
no intention of retiring. Ted's girlfriend, Laurie, gave birth to

819
00:44:27.079 --> 00:44:29.920
a son. It was a secret, but word began to

820
00:44:29.960 --> 00:44:32.840
seep out in New York about Ted's mistress and a

821
00:44:32.960 --> 00:44:35.559
child that may have been his. I should say at

822
00:44:35.559 --> 00:44:39.199
this point that I have no confirmation that this child

823
00:44:39.480 --> 00:44:42.679
was actually Ted's. It's possible that it wasn't. I don't

824
00:44:42.719 --> 00:44:46.360
think anyone has confirmed it either way. In two thousand,

825
00:44:46.440 --> 00:44:49.599
Ted had lunched several times with his ex Wifrandy Day,

826
00:44:49.679 --> 00:44:52.920
who was going through a difficult divorce from her second husband.

827
00:44:53.320 --> 00:44:55.559
Ted gave her a million dollar loan to help her

828
00:44:55.599 --> 00:44:58.639
get back on her feet. When Generosa found out, she

829
00:44:58.840 --> 00:45:02.679
was seething, con vince that Ted was rekindling something with Randy,

830
00:45:03.000 --> 00:45:06.519
but he denied it. Generosa started making calls back to

831
00:45:06.599 --> 00:45:10.280
New York asking around. Nobody had anything damaging to say

832
00:45:10.280 --> 00:45:13.920
about Randy, but a few people mentioned something else. There

833
00:45:14.039 --> 00:45:17.079
was this woman, Laurie, who had recently had a baby.

834
00:45:17.400 --> 00:45:20.159
Nobody seemed to know who the father was. Could it

835
00:45:20.239 --> 00:45:20.800
be Ted?

836
00:45:21.519 --> 00:45:25.239
Her suspicion growing, Jena Rosa Pride opened Ted's locked desk

837
00:45:25.320 --> 00:45:28.360
in their London home inside, she found a bill from

838
00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:31.840
a London attorney. She looked up the firm and realized

839
00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:35.679
that they specialized in divorce. She confronted him and he

840
00:45:35.760 --> 00:45:39.039
acknowledged that yes, he had consulted a divorce lawyer at

841
00:45:39.039 --> 00:45:42.039
one point, but he didn't want a divorce. He did

842
00:45:42.079 --> 00:45:45.039
admit to the other woman, though there was no denying

843
00:45:45.079 --> 00:45:48.320
it anymore. He said he was confused and asked Gena

844
00:45:48.400 --> 00:45:51.519
Rosa for time to sort through it. Gena Rosa was

845
00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:54.719
stunned for a few days. The hurt was overwhelming, but

846
00:45:54.800 --> 00:45:58.199
then she decided to go on offense. She consulted a

847
00:45:58.199 --> 00:46:01.519
divorce lawyer of her own and hired a private detective.

848
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:05.679
From the lawyer, Generosa learned that financially speaking, she was

849
00:46:05.719 --> 00:46:07.920
in a far worse position living in London than she

850
00:46:07.960 --> 00:46:11.159
would be in New York. She concluded that Ted had

851
00:46:11.199 --> 00:46:14.800
set up things this way deliberately. He had dangled London

852
00:46:14.880 --> 00:46:17.360
in front of her, knowing it would benefit him in

853
00:46:17.400 --> 00:46:21.960
a divorce. Generosa made immediate arrangements to move herself and

854
00:46:22.000 --> 00:46:25.159
the children back to New York, and she made herself

855
00:46:25.199 --> 00:46:29.639
a promise Ted would pay for this. She would destroy him.

856
00:46:29.920 --> 00:46:33.400
Gen Rosa filed for divorce. In August of two thousand,

857
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:36.400
a wealthy friend of Gena Rosa's, who had been through

858
00:46:36.440 --> 00:46:40.679
a divorce of her own, offered some strategic advice established

859
00:46:40.719 --> 00:46:45.079
the highest possible standard of living immediately, because a judge

860
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:48.159
would eventually look at what she was accustomed to and

861
00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:51.880
rule accordingly. Gena Rosa took the advice and ran with

862
00:46:51.960 --> 00:46:55.880
it to an extreme. As an opening move, she informed

863
00:46:55.880 --> 00:46:58.440
Ted she needed a new residence in New York and

864
00:46:58.480 --> 00:47:02.880
obtained a mortgage and an eight story townhouse, and she

865
00:47:03.000 --> 00:47:06.440
told him she needed a million dollars for renovations. Her

866
00:47:06.519 --> 00:47:11.920
vision for the space was a Jetson's themed residence, futuristic

867
00:47:12.119 --> 00:47:13.199
and extravagantly.

868
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:15.920
That just strikes me as so funny that she wanted

869
00:47:15.960 --> 00:47:19.239
she had this vision of a Jetsons themed building.

870
00:47:19.840 --> 00:47:21.440
Yeah, do you know what that means?

871
00:47:21.519 --> 00:47:23.760
I don't know exactly what that means that I don't

872
00:47:23.880 --> 00:47:26.320
think it ever came to fruition, so sadly I don't

873
00:47:26.360 --> 00:47:28.400
have any pictures of her description.

874
00:47:28.760 --> 00:47:30.599
You would think in twenty twenty six we would be

875
00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:33.079
much closer to the Jetsons than I guess we are,

876
00:47:33.239 --> 00:47:36.960
other than flying cars. And remember how I think George's spaceship,

877
00:47:37.079 --> 00:47:38.400
like it would fold into like.

878
00:47:38.400 --> 00:47:41.119
A freaking Yeah, I forgot that, but yeah, she.

879
00:47:41.199 --> 00:47:44.920
Had an armed bodyguard on retainer for fifty thousand dollars

880
00:47:44.920 --> 00:47:49.039
a year. Her housekeeper made fifty thousand dollars, so did

881
00:47:49.039 --> 00:47:53.119
the chef. Her personal assistant earned one hundred thousand dollars.

882
00:47:53.400 --> 00:47:56.239
She had a driver for another fifty thousand dollars, a

883
00:47:56.320 --> 00:48:00.960
gardener for thirty thousand dollars, and maintenance workers for sixty

884
00:48:01.039 --> 00:48:04.920
thousand dollars. In court, she demanded one hundred and eighty

885
00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.119
thousand dollars a month for basic living expenses. She wanted

886
00:48:09.199 --> 00:48:12.159
all of the real estate, the two English properties, the

887
00:48:12.199 --> 00:48:15.880
East Hampton House and the new Townhouse. She said the

888
00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:19.119
townhouse is eight stories and that's all theirs, Like they

889
00:48:19.159 --> 00:48:20.320
own all eight stories.

890
00:48:20.440 --> 00:48:22.079
I think she owned the whole thing, or they owned

891
00:48:22.119 --> 00:48:22.480
the whole thing.

892
00:48:22.559 --> 00:48:25.079
Yeah, but it was all one residence, is what I'm asking.

893
00:48:25.320 --> 00:48:27.400
I think it was. But she may have had designs

894
00:48:27.440 --> 00:48:30.440
to turn it into a multi residence type building.

895
00:48:30.760 --> 00:48:33.440
Okay, gotcha. Well, she had so many people on staff,

896
00:48:33.480 --> 00:48:35.920
and if they resided with them, I guess they would

897
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:37.079
need a lot of extra rooms.

898
00:48:37.119 --> 00:48:39.239
Well, she wasn't actually living in the townhouse. So she

899
00:48:39.440 --> 00:48:41.239
bought it, and then she was going to gut it.

900
00:48:41.280 --> 00:48:43.480
And we'll talk about where she was living in just

901
00:48:43.519 --> 00:48:43.920
a minute.

902
00:48:43.920 --> 00:48:47.639
Here, Jennerosa informed their friends that there was no middle ground.

903
00:48:47.840 --> 00:48:50.599
They were either with her or with Ted, and if

904
00:48:50.599 --> 00:48:53.960
they chose Ted, they were done. Most of them chose Ted.

905
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:57.320
To anyone who would listen, she told the same story.

906
00:48:57.639 --> 00:49:00.480
Ted was a philanderer, a cheat, a man who had

907
00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:04.159
fathered a son outside their marriage, who cheated on his taxes,

908
00:49:04.320 --> 00:49:08.039
and who had dark and kinky appetites. She spread these

909
00:49:08.119 --> 00:49:12.000
rumors through their social world like a brushfire. She also

910
00:49:12.039 --> 00:49:15.719
began working on the children. Slowly and deliberately. She turned

911
00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:19.519
Grego and Alexa against their father. She encouraged them to

912
00:49:19.559 --> 00:49:24.320
read the divorce filings, which contained explicit details of Ted's infidelity.

913
00:49:24.719 --> 00:49:27.360
She told them that their father wanted to have her killed,

914
00:49:27.639 --> 00:49:29.960
and not just her, he wanted to kill their dog

915
00:49:30.039 --> 00:49:33.719
Buddy and their beloved butler too. One of Grego's teachers

916
00:49:33.760 --> 00:49:36.599
reported that the boy was so consumed by fear of

917
00:49:36.639 --> 00:49:39.320
being kidnapped by his own father that he could barely

918
00:49:39.320 --> 00:49:42.079
pay attention in class. So the kids are.

919
00:49:42.119 --> 00:49:44.440
Like ten at this point.

920
00:49:44.320 --> 00:49:47.920
Yet Generosa was also convinced Ted was hiding money. He

921
00:49:48.000 --> 00:49:50.400
had lost nearly half of his fortune in the market

922
00:49:50.400 --> 00:49:53.920
and internet crashes, but Generosa didn't believe it. She was

923
00:49:53.960 --> 00:49:57.599
certain he had assets tucked away somewhere with friends, with

924
00:49:57.679 --> 00:50:01.039
his ex wife, or in Swiss bank account. Every time

925
00:50:01.079 --> 00:50:03.599
Ted and his lawyers thought they were approaching a settlement,

926
00:50:03.800 --> 00:50:07.559
Generosa raised her demands. Her own lawyers knew that a

927
00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:11.599
faster settlement would serve her better as Ted's fortune was shrinking,

928
00:50:11.920 --> 00:50:15.440
but Generosa wasn't just fighting for money, she was out

929
00:50:15.480 --> 00:50:19.320
for blood. One morning that fall, in the shower, Generosa

930
00:50:19.320 --> 00:50:22.480
felt a lump in her left breast. Her family doctor

931
00:50:22.519 --> 00:50:25.480
examined her and told her she needed a mammogram and

932
00:50:25.599 --> 00:50:29.480
possibly a sonogram as soon as possible. Later, she called

933
00:50:29.480 --> 00:50:32.159
Ted and told him about the lump. Ted wasn't sure

934
00:50:32.159 --> 00:50:35.639
what to believe. Things between them had become so poisonous

935
00:50:35.840 --> 00:50:38.599
that he didn't know what was real anymore, so he

936
00:50:38.719 --> 00:50:42.159
called her doctor himself. The doctor told him that, yes,

937
00:50:42.280 --> 00:50:45.239
the lump was real, that he was fairly certain it

938
00:50:45.280 --> 00:50:48.000
would prove to be cancer. He wanted Ted to know

939
00:50:48.159 --> 00:50:51.199
because he was worried Generosa might not follow through. On

940
00:50:51.320 --> 00:50:54.800
treatment on her own. Ted called Generosa and said that

941
00:50:54.840 --> 00:50:59.079
he'd spoken to her doctor. She exploded. She screamed that

942
00:50:59.159 --> 00:51:02.280
he had no right to contact her physician, that it

943
00:51:02.320 --> 00:51:06.519
was unethical and illegal. Then she hung up. Generosa didn't

944
00:51:06.559 --> 00:51:10.679
realize how closely her situation mirrored her mother's. She didn't

945
00:51:10.719 --> 00:51:13.280
know that Babe had also found a lump, but roughly

946
00:51:13.320 --> 00:51:16.400
the same age. She didn't know that her mother's refusal

947
00:51:16.480 --> 00:51:20.239
to face it had contributed directly to her death. Generosa

948
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:23.000
had spent her whole life vowing to be nothing like

949
00:51:23.079 --> 00:51:27.000
her mother, yet here she was making the same choice.

950
00:51:27.079 --> 00:51:30.519
She stopped returning her family doctor's calls. In her mind,

951
00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:33.400
he had betrayed her by speaking with Ted. When he

952
00:51:33.480 --> 00:51:36.320
finally sent her a registered letter employing her to seek

953
00:51:36.320 --> 00:51:39.519
treatment immediately, she saw his name on the envelope and

954
00:51:39.599 --> 00:51:42.079
tore it up without reading it. It was around this

955
00:51:42.159 --> 00:51:44.960
time that a contractor she worked with brought an electrician

956
00:51:45.119 --> 00:51:49.239
named Danny Pelosi into Jenner Rosa's orbit. The three of

957
00:51:49.280 --> 00:51:51.679
them met at a bar in Manhattan to discuss some

958
00:51:51.719 --> 00:51:54.719
work she needed done at the townhouse. As they talked,

959
00:51:54.960 --> 00:51:58.760
Danny realized that gene Rosa knew her stuff. She understood

960
00:51:58.800 --> 00:52:02.519
building design and renovation. He turned on the charm and

961
00:52:02.639 --> 00:52:05.639
she gave him the job. Danny rounded up some guys

962
00:52:05.639 --> 00:52:08.159
for his crew. When they got to work, he thought

963
00:52:08.199 --> 00:52:12.400
Generosa was a pain in the ass, demanding, volatile, and

964
00:52:12.519 --> 00:52:16.000
frankly a little crazy. She was paying him well, and

965
00:52:16.159 --> 00:52:19.599
he needed the money badly, so he smiled through it all.

966
00:52:20.159 --> 00:52:23.599
One morning, Generosa arrived at the townhouse and found Danny

967
00:52:23.599 --> 00:52:26.559
asleep in his truck. She asked him what he was doing.

968
00:52:27.039 --> 00:52:29.960
He explained that the drive back and forth from Suffolk

969
00:52:30.000 --> 00:52:33.039
County was exhausting. It was easier to sleep at the

970
00:52:33.119 --> 00:52:35.639
job site. Some of the other guys did it too.

971
00:52:36.119 --> 00:52:39.679
Generosa wouldn't hear of it. No worker of hers would

972
00:52:39.679 --> 00:52:42.280
be sleeping in a truck. She booked rooms for them

973
00:52:42.360 --> 00:52:46.039
at the Stanhope Hotel, one of the most elegant hotels

974
00:52:46.079 --> 00:52:49.320
in the Upper East Side, for three hundred dollars a night.

975
00:52:49.840 --> 00:52:52.960
As the weeks went on, Danny and Generosa grew friendlier,

976
00:52:53.320 --> 00:52:57.000
then flirtatious. Danny could see that she was attracted to him,

977
00:52:57.199 --> 00:53:01.679
but he held back for fear of complicating the working relationship. Eventually,

978
00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:05.480
Generosa made her intentions explicit She told Danny that she

979
00:53:05.559 --> 00:53:08.679
hadn't had sex in two years. Danny looked at her

980
00:53:08.719 --> 00:53:11.519
and said, promise you won't fire me if we have sex.

981
00:53:12.320 --> 00:53:15.280
She promised, well, be back after a break.

982
00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:25.199
Let's talk about Danny Pelosi, the third player in our drama.

983
00:53:25.639 --> 00:53:29.079
Danny Pelosi grew up in Queen's the fourth of six kids.

984
00:53:29.320 --> 00:53:32.599
His father, Bob, was a former US Marine, a decorated

985
00:53:32.679 --> 00:53:35.519
Korean War veteran, and a banker who had worked his

986
00:53:35.559 --> 00:53:38.239
way up from blue collar roots to become a vice

987
00:53:38.280 --> 00:53:41.239
president at his firm. Bob Pelosi was the kind of

988
00:53:41.280 --> 00:53:44.440
man who believed in discipline, hard work, and doing things

989
00:53:44.480 --> 00:53:47.280
the right way. His son, Danny was going to test

990
00:53:47.440 --> 00:53:50.599
every one of those beliefs. Danny was high strung from

991
00:53:50.679 --> 00:53:53.559
the start and small, which meant that he got bullied.

992
00:53:53.920 --> 00:53:56.599
Bob taught him self defense techniques that he had learned

993
00:53:56.639 --> 00:54:00.119
in the Marines that backfired almost immediately when Dan, when

994
00:54:00.199 --> 00:54:03.480
he didn't use his new skills to defend himself, used

995
00:54:03.480 --> 00:54:07.519
them aggressively looking for trouble rather than avoiding it. Bob

996
00:54:07.599 --> 00:54:10.280
signed him up for boxing lessons, hoping to channel some

997
00:54:10.400 --> 00:54:14.039
of that energy somewhere useful, and Danny took to it naturally.

998
00:54:14.519 --> 00:54:17.679
When Danny was eleven, the family scraped together enough money

999
00:54:17.719 --> 00:54:19.960
to leave the city and move to the suburbs of

1000
00:54:20.000 --> 00:54:22.800
Long Island, believing it would be a better environment to

1001
00:54:22.920 --> 00:54:25.840
raise six kids. It didn't quite work out that way,

1002
00:54:25.960 --> 00:54:28.880
at least not for Danny. He drifted toward a bad

1003
00:54:28.960 --> 00:54:32.719
crowd in high school, cultivated a tough guy reputation, and

1004
00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:36.880
got into trouble regularly. When Danny was seventeen, his parents'

1005
00:54:36.880 --> 00:54:40.960
marriage began to fall apart, ending in divorce. Danny responded

1006
00:54:41.000 --> 00:54:44.239
by coming apart at the seams himself. In nineteen eighty

1007
00:54:44.280 --> 00:54:46.880
he got kicked out of high school. That same summer,

1008
00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:49.840
at a graduation party, he met a girl named Tammy,

1009
00:54:49.960 --> 00:54:53.119
and they started dating. A few months later, Danny was

1010
00:54:53.239 --> 00:54:56.760
arrested for assault and served twenty days in jail. By

1011
00:54:56.800 --> 00:54:59.119
the time he got out, Tammy had learned that she

1012
00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:02.000
was pregnant, and they got married in March of nineteen

1013
00:55:02.039 --> 00:55:05.559
eighty two. The next several years were not good to Danny.

1014
00:55:05.880 --> 00:55:09.320
A workplace accident doing masonry left him laid up for

1015
00:55:09.400 --> 00:55:12.800
three months with a concussion, a herniated disk, and a

1016
00:55:12.840 --> 00:55:16.559
prescription for valuum that quickly turned into an addiction. He

1017
00:55:16.679 --> 00:55:19.360
drank on top of that to dull the pain. Their

1018
00:55:19.400 --> 00:55:22.599
first child was born in September nineteen eighty two, and

1019
00:55:22.679 --> 00:55:25.599
Danny and Tammy went on welfare to get by. The

1020
00:55:25.639 --> 00:55:28.760
following summer, he was arrested for drunk driving and had

1021
00:55:28.760 --> 00:55:32.159
his license suspended. Then he was caught leaving the scene

1022
00:55:32.199 --> 00:55:35.719
of an accident and later arrested again for drunk driving,

1023
00:55:36.000 --> 00:55:39.360
this time with valium and marijuana in his system. Two

1024
00:55:39.440 --> 00:55:41.760
months after that, he was involved in a four car

1025
00:55:41.840 --> 00:55:45.800
pile up on the Long Island Expressway. His family confronted him.

1026
00:55:46.079 --> 00:55:49.400
He quit the valuum, but his drinking got worse. In

1027
00:55:49.440 --> 00:55:52.599
February nineteen eighty four, his father Bob, drove him to

1028
00:55:52.639 --> 00:55:56.199
a rehab clinic, but it didn't take. When Danny got out,

1029
00:55:56.280 --> 00:55:59.159
he went back to his old habits. In January of

1030
00:55:59.239 --> 00:56:02.000
nineteen eighty five, he went to jail for forty days

1031
00:56:02.039 --> 00:56:05.760
on a previous DWI charge. Over the next couple of years,

1032
00:56:05.760 --> 00:56:09.599
he was arrested multiple times for infractions, including assault and

1033
00:56:09.679 --> 00:56:13.519
drunk driving. Each time his father bailed him out. Danny

1034
00:56:13.559 --> 00:56:16.360
and Tammy's second child was born in nineteen eighty six,

1035
00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:19.559
and their third in nineteen ninety. In nineteen eighty nine,

1036
00:56:19.639 --> 00:56:23.239
Danny finally got clean after another stint in rehab. He

1037
00:56:23.360 --> 00:56:27.039
started going to AA meetings and stayed sober for nine years.

1038
00:56:27.519 --> 00:56:30.559
He worked steadily, came home at night, and became something

1039
00:56:30.639 --> 00:56:34.719
closer to a real father. In nineteen ninety Tammy's grandfather

1040
00:56:34.840 --> 00:56:37.599
gave them ten thousand dollars to put toward a house

1041
00:56:37.639 --> 00:56:40.639
in Manorville, and Danny was holding out hope for the

1042
00:56:40.719 --> 00:56:44.000
civil lawsuit he and Tammy had filed against his former

1043
00:56:44.079 --> 00:56:48.119
employer over the masonry accident. His lawyers believed he could

1044
00:56:48.159 --> 00:56:51.760
win a million dollar settlement. The civil trial finally took

1045
00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:55.480
place in March nineteen ninety four. One day during the trial,

1046
00:56:55.599 --> 00:56:58.079
Danny needed to get to the courthouse and couldn't find

1047
00:56:58.119 --> 00:57:01.440
a ride, so he drove himself despite the fact that

1048
00:57:01.519 --> 00:57:04.880
his license was suspended. He was caught by the police

1049
00:57:04.920 --> 00:57:07.440
in the parking lot of the courthouse, and that was

1050
00:57:07.480 --> 00:57:10.760
witnessed by several jurors in his civil case. On the

1051
00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:14.079
stand that day, Danny was cross examined about his three

1052
00:57:14.199 --> 00:57:20.480
DWI arrests, his speeding citations, his unreported accident, his license suspensions,

1053
00:57:20.519 --> 00:57:22.960
and for good measure, the fact that he had driven

1054
00:57:23.000 --> 00:57:26.480
to court that very morning on a suspended license. It

1055
00:57:26.559 --> 00:57:29.760
all looked pretty bad to the jury. They ultimately found

1056
00:57:29.800 --> 00:57:33.079
that his employer had been negligent, but they also found

1057
00:57:33.239 --> 00:57:37.000
that Danny's own negligence had contributed to the accident. They

1058
00:57:37.039 --> 00:57:41.199
awarded him nothing. Danny and Tammy filed for bankruptcy in

1059
00:57:41.280 --> 00:57:44.400
nineteen ninety five. He fell off the wagon in nineteen

1060
00:57:44.480 --> 00:57:47.480
ninety eight when he was arrested for drunk driving once again.

1061
00:57:48.039 --> 00:57:50.920
He spent another six months in jail with five years

1062
00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:54.639
probation after By the time Danny Pelosi walked into that

1063
00:57:54.800 --> 00:57:58.639
Manhattan bar and met Generosa Ammon, he was broke, he

1064
00:57:58.719 --> 00:58:01.519
was in debt, his house was about to be auctioned off,

1065
00:58:01.840 --> 00:58:03.880
and he was running out of options.

1066
00:58:04.599 --> 00:58:06.039
Danny has been through a lot.

1067
00:58:06.199 --> 00:58:08.039
He has certainly been through a lot, most of it

1068
00:58:08.119 --> 00:58:10.360
by his own right or the ed musicians.

1069
00:58:10.440 --> 00:58:13.079
But it just stresses me out when people are going

1070
00:58:13.119 --> 00:58:16.000
through so much hardship and you know they're broke and

1071
00:58:16.159 --> 00:58:18.320
they don't have any way to support their family.

1072
00:58:18.440 --> 00:58:22.239
And Generosa wanted to show Danny off. She took him

1073
00:58:22.280 --> 00:58:25.320
to the opera, to expensive nightclubs, taking him out in

1074
00:58:25.480 --> 00:58:28.280
chauffeurd limousines to the kind of places he had never

1075
00:58:28.360 --> 00:58:32.239
been and didn't particularly want to go. Danny felt out

1076
00:58:32.239 --> 00:58:34.800
of place, and he said so. He took her to

1077
00:58:34.840 --> 00:58:37.760
sports bars, his kind of places, and told her she

1078
00:58:37.920 --> 00:58:40.360
needed to let him be who he was. When she

1079
00:58:40.480 --> 00:58:44.159
suggested he introduce himself at social events without his heavy,

1080
00:58:44.239 --> 00:58:47.239
working class New York accent, he told her that's just

1081
00:58:47.280 --> 00:58:50.440
who I am. I speak Brooklyn Eese. It was an

1082
00:58:50.480 --> 00:58:54.280
unlikely match, but they had chemistry. They also had addictions,

1083
00:58:54.599 --> 00:58:59.159
Danny to alcohol and sex, Generosa to money. Their relationship

1084
00:58:59.239 --> 00:59:03.480
didn't neutralize those tendencies, however, instead it multiplied them.

1085
00:59:03.800 --> 00:59:04.880
Danny is still married.

1086
00:59:04.920 --> 00:59:08.880
Correct, he is still married. Generosa started drinking heavily, getting

1087
00:59:08.920 --> 00:59:12.039
loaded with Danny on a daily basis. With Ted no

1088
00:59:12.159 --> 00:59:15.679
longer around to disapprove, she started smoking like a chimney.

1089
00:59:16.119 --> 00:59:19.000
Danny meanwhile, discovered what it felt like to have money,

1090
00:59:19.159 --> 00:59:22.000
and he became intoxicated by it. He felt like a

1091
00:59:22.079 --> 00:59:24.719
rich man for the first time in his life. They

1092
00:59:24.719 --> 00:59:29.039
were all staying at the Stanhope Hotel, Generosa, Danny, the kids,

1093
00:59:29.159 --> 00:59:32.360
and the work crew while the townhouse was being renovated.

1094
00:59:32.760 --> 00:59:36.360
Breakfast ran five hundred dollars every morning. They partied at

1095
00:59:36.400 --> 00:59:39.920
the hotel bar most nights. Until late Danny started bringing

1096
00:59:39.960 --> 00:59:43.480
his friends and family around, people who didn't fit comfortably

1097
00:59:43.559 --> 00:59:46.920
into the Stanhope's upper crossed atmosphere, but he didn't care.

1098
00:59:47.440 --> 00:59:50.760
One night, drunk and holding court, Danny regaled the bar

1099
00:59:50.880 --> 00:59:55.079
with stories about his supposed connections to the mafia. Generosa

1100
00:59:55.079 --> 00:59:58.559
giggled beside him she couldn't wait to tell Ted gleefully

1101
00:59:58.599 --> 01:00:03.400
exclaiming he'll shit pants. Generosa and Danny shared the Stanhope's

1102
01:00:03.440 --> 01:00:07.199
presidential suite at fifteen hundred dollars a night. Danny also

1103
01:00:07.280 --> 01:00:10.559
kept his own room just for appearances. The kids had

1104
01:00:10.599 --> 01:00:13.440
their own rooms, and the crew had two more. Add

1105
01:00:13.480 --> 01:00:17.119
in meals, tips, incidentals, and the private school tuition for

1106
01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:20.559
Grego and Alexa and Ted. Ammon was paying upwards of

1107
01:00:20.880 --> 01:00:23.800
one hundred thousand dollars a month for Generosa and her

1108
01:00:23.800 --> 01:00:27.800
friends to live it up. Wow. In two thousand and one,

1109
01:00:28.000 --> 01:00:30.920
Ted had the twins for spring break. They were eleven

1110
01:00:31.000 --> 01:00:33.760
years old at this time. Spending a week with them,

1111
01:00:33.800 --> 01:00:36.199
he could see clearly what Generosa had been.

1112
01:00:36.079 --> 01:00:38.480
Doing with They were eleven and they had their own

1113
01:00:38.519 --> 01:00:39.199
hotel room.

1114
01:00:39.480 --> 01:00:42.400
Yeah, nice to live in the life, Ted could tell

1115
01:00:42.440 --> 01:00:46.199
that they were different, guarded, distant, repeating things that were

1116
01:00:46.239 --> 01:00:49.320
clearly scripted by their mom. When the week ended and

1117
01:00:49.360 --> 01:00:52.239
they went back to their mother, Generosa grilled them about

1118
01:00:52.239 --> 01:00:55.440
every detail. They denied having had a good time, but

1119
01:00:55.639 --> 01:00:59.000
she refused to believe them and accused them of being disloyal.

1120
01:00:59.360 --> 01:01:02.480
She gave them the silent treatment for three days. When

1121
01:01:02.480 --> 01:01:04.639
the children came to her in tears, begging her to

1122
01:01:04.639 --> 01:01:07.880
stop being angry with them, she exploded, go live with

1123
01:01:07.920 --> 01:01:10.559
your father if you like him so much. Ted began

1124
01:01:10.639 --> 01:01:14.559
telling people he was afraid of Generosa. His sister urged

1125
01:01:14.639 --> 01:01:17.280
him to hire a bodyguard, but Ted said no.

1126
01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:21.239
Danny turned to a friend, John Kundall, an expert in

1127
01:01:21.320 --> 01:01:25.760
state of the art surveillance. Without Ted's knowledge, Kundall surreptitiously

1128
01:01:25.800 --> 01:01:30.159
installed a rapid eye system throughout the Easthampton Beach house.

1129
01:01:30.559 --> 01:01:34.639
The setup was extensive, eight cameras hidden within the interior

1130
01:01:35.079 --> 01:01:38.280
and one monitoring the grounds, only one outside in.

1131
01:01:38.400 --> 01:01:41.000
Yah It was not about the outside so much.

1132
01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:44.760
To ensure the operation remained undetective. The system's hard drive

1133
01:01:45.360 --> 01:01:48.440
was concealed behind a wall panel inside the safe room.

1134
01:01:48.920 --> 01:01:53.000
The objective was leverage. Generosa hoped the cameras would capture

1135
01:01:53.039 --> 01:01:56.920
Ted in compromising positions with other women or with men,

1136
01:01:57.159 --> 01:02:01.000
which was her secret hope, or catch them illegally valuables

1137
01:02:01.079 --> 01:02:04.559
to hide from the divorce settlement. From his laptop, Danny

1138
01:02:04.639 --> 01:02:07.920
kept watch, monitoring the live feed whenever Ted was at

1139
01:02:07.960 --> 01:02:11.119
the residence. At times, Danny even set up his laptop

1140
01:02:11.159 --> 01:02:13.760
at the construction site so the work crew could watch.

1141
01:02:14.000 --> 01:02:17.360
They thought it was better than cable. Mostly boring until

1142
01:02:17.360 --> 01:02:20.000
one afternoon when the cameras caught Ted in the kitchen

1143
01:02:20.239 --> 01:02:23.719
getting romantic with a new girlfriend. Work on the construction

1144
01:02:24.079 --> 01:02:26.639
site ground to a halt as the crew gathered around

1145
01:02:26.639 --> 01:02:30.880
the laptop. Later, Danny played a recording of it for Generosa.

1146
01:02:30.920 --> 01:02:33.280
This whole thing of him installing these cameras in the

1147
01:02:33.280 --> 01:02:36.159
house bothers me so much, such an invasion of privacy,

1148
01:02:36.440 --> 01:02:38.719
and Ted had no idea it was there. So he's

1149
01:02:38.800 --> 01:02:41.599
living his life in this house having no idea that

1150
01:02:41.639 --> 01:02:43.039
he's being watched all the time.

1151
01:02:43.119 --> 01:02:45.400
That's a secret fear of mine. I think it's for everyone,

1152
01:02:45.480 --> 01:02:48.360
especially when we're seeing at like hoteler in Airbnb. It's

1153
01:02:48.360 --> 01:02:51.440
like you just have no idea. Yeah, Danny, wasn't the

1154
01:02:51.440 --> 01:02:54.079
only one digging for dirt. Ted had hired one of

1155
01:02:54.159 --> 01:02:57.960
New York's most formidable private investigators. Her first order of

1156
01:02:58.039 --> 01:03:01.760
business was a deep dive into Danny Pelosi. She easily

1157
01:03:01.840 --> 01:03:06.320
unearthed Danny's history, the string of arrests, bankruptcy, and foreclosure,

1158
01:03:06.480 --> 01:03:09.840
all leading up to the moment he stepped into Generosa's world.

1159
01:03:10.159 --> 01:03:13.039
Buried in the file was a psychiatric evaluation from a

1160
01:03:13.239 --> 01:03:17.519
prior court case. It diagnosed Danny with a personality disorder

1161
01:03:17.719 --> 01:03:22.199
marked by antisocial traits, a revelation that left Ted sickened

1162
01:03:22.199 --> 01:03:24.599
by the thought of this man sharing a home with

1163
01:03:24.639 --> 01:03:28.639
his children. Ted authorized his investigator to conduct surveillance on

1164
01:03:28.719 --> 01:03:31.920
the East Hampton house while Generosa and Danny were there.

1165
01:03:32.280 --> 01:03:36.159
Her operatives set up one Friday in June two thousand

1166
01:03:36.159 --> 01:03:39.159
and one, as Danny arrived with Generosa and the kids.

1167
01:03:39.599 --> 01:03:44.159
Over the following days, Ted's investigators, watching through binoculars walking past,

1168
01:03:44.519 --> 01:03:48.039
captured what they could on video. They documented several things

1169
01:03:48.039 --> 01:03:51.679
that Judge and the divorce case had explicitly forbidden. They

1170
01:03:51.679 --> 01:03:54.679
caught Generosa and Danny having sex in the backyard by

1171
01:03:54.719 --> 01:03:57.599
the pool. They confirmed that Danny was spending nights at

1172
01:03:57.599 --> 01:04:01.320
the house with the children present, which the court had prohibited,

1173
01:04:01.599 --> 01:04:05.639
and they documented Danny's driving Ted's children around despite having

1174
01:04:05.719 --> 01:04:10.280
no valid license and a record that included multiple DWY arrests.

1175
01:04:10.760 --> 01:04:12.920
Before Ted had the chance to use any of this

1176
01:04:13.000 --> 01:04:16.280
in court, a judge issued a blanket order banning any

1177
01:04:16.400 --> 01:04:20.480
video and audio surveillance connected to the case. Ted pulled

1178
01:04:20.480 --> 01:04:24.840
his investigators off of surveillance duty. Danny and Generosa, however,

1179
01:04:25.159 --> 01:04:29.880
left their cameras running still without Ted's knowledge. Ted's lawyers

1180
01:04:29.920 --> 01:04:35.320
had been watching Generosa's Jetson's themed townhouse renovation with growing suspicion.

1181
01:04:35.719 --> 01:04:40.000
They demanded a detailed accounting of the project, but Generosa refused.

1182
01:04:40.239 --> 01:04:43.639
Ted responded by cutting off the cash flow entirely and

1183
01:04:43.719 --> 01:04:47.159
canceling her credit cards. Nothing would probably hurt her more

1184
01:04:47.199 --> 01:04:50.840
than thou, absolutely, His attorney made clear that he wouldn't

1185
01:04:50.840 --> 01:04:53.599
pay another cent until he saw proof of where the

1186
01:04:53.639 --> 01:04:56.960
money was going. He continued paying to support the children,

1187
01:04:57.159 --> 01:05:01.519
but everything else stopped. A NonStop party at the Stanhope

1188
01:05:01.519 --> 01:05:05.599
Hotel ended almost overnight. Work on the townhouse slowed to

1189
01:05:05.639 --> 01:05:09.119
a crawl. As gener Rosa fell behind on her renovation loans.

1190
01:05:09.360 --> 01:05:12.000
Danny had to sell the SUV that gener Rosa had

1191
01:05:12.039 --> 01:05:14.800
given to him. She told anyone who had listen that

1192
01:05:14.920 --> 01:05:18.039
Ted had cut her off for no reason, that he

1193
01:05:18.159 --> 01:05:22.119
was vindictive and cruel. Ted also fought back on another front.

1194
01:05:22.360 --> 01:05:25.079
He sat the children down and told them the truth.

1195
01:05:25.360 --> 01:05:27.840
The man they were living with wasn't a hero. He

1196
01:05:27.960 --> 01:05:30.800
was a thief, a drug addict, and a violent drunk

1197
01:05:30.840 --> 01:05:33.559
with a rap sheet that stretched back years. He was

1198
01:05:33.599 --> 01:05:36.960
also Ted Noted still a married man. It might be

1199
01:05:37.000 --> 01:05:39.639
a lot for two, definitely.

1200
01:05:40.119 --> 01:05:42.159
I think he was feeling a little desperate by this time.

1201
01:05:42.239 --> 01:05:44.800
And I should have mentioned that the kids loved Danny.

1202
01:05:44.880 --> 01:05:47.400
They thought he was like this great guy.

1203
01:05:47.000 --> 01:05:51.719
Super fun. When the children corner Danny with this new information,

1204
01:05:51.960 --> 01:05:54.800
he admitted to some scrapes with the law, but claimed

1205
01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:57.280
everything else that Ted had told them was a lie.

1206
01:05:57.679 --> 01:06:00.639
He was livid in Danny's world, Ted that had broken

1207
01:06:00.639 --> 01:06:04.079
an unwritten rule by dragging the children into the line

1208
01:06:04.079 --> 01:06:07.159
of fire. One afternoon, when Ted was dropping the kids

1209
01:06:07.159 --> 01:06:10.000
off at the beach house, Danny decided to confront him

1210
01:06:10.039 --> 01:06:13.039
about what he viewed as a violation of his boundaries.

1211
01:06:13.400 --> 01:06:16.079
Ted was already pulling away when Danny came out and

1212
01:06:16.159 --> 01:06:19.760
called after him. Ted ignored him. Danny yelled, Yo, I

1213
01:06:19.760 --> 01:06:22.880
ain't done with you yet. Ted kept moving. I have

1214
01:06:23.039 --> 01:06:25.360
nothing to say to you, he said, and rolled up

1215
01:06:25.400 --> 01:06:28.760
his window. Danny walked over and punched the closed window

1216
01:06:28.800 --> 01:06:32.679
with his fist. We done talking, Ted put the car

1217
01:06:32.719 --> 01:06:35.960
in park and rolled the window down. Danny unloaded on Ted,

1218
01:06:36.039 --> 01:06:38.159
saying he had no right to tell the kids those

1219
01:06:38.199 --> 01:06:41.760
things about him. Ted listened calmly. When Danny was done,

1220
01:06:41.880 --> 01:06:46.159
Ted said, look, I'm glad Generos is happy. But honestly, Dan,

1221
01:06:46.519 --> 01:06:48.599
good luck and tea chrove away.

1222
01:06:48.960 --> 01:06:52.400
And that is where we're going to end Part one. Okay, Well,

1223
01:06:52.440 --> 01:06:54.239
before we do, I have a few things I wanted

1224
01:06:54.239 --> 01:06:58.719
to discuss with you. We talked about Generosa's childhood, very insecure,

1225
01:06:59.119 --> 01:07:02.440
very traumatic. Her mom died when she was young, she

1226
01:07:02.519 --> 01:07:05.320
was turned away from multiple families. I just want to

1227
01:07:05.320 --> 01:07:08.440
talk a little bit about how that might have affected her.

1228
01:07:08.960 --> 01:07:11.840
Well. Outwardly, she seemed pretty confident, but I would think

1229
01:07:11.880 --> 01:07:15.639
that it made her you know, insecure and you know,

1230
01:07:15.719 --> 01:07:18.239
probably lacking in confidence. But sounds like she did have

1231
01:07:18.280 --> 01:07:21.320
a good education. But I think even just one of

1232
01:07:21.360 --> 01:07:25.159
those things that she suffered through sexual abuse by someone,

1233
01:07:25.159 --> 01:07:27.280
that she should have trusted, and the loss of her

1234
01:07:27.280 --> 01:07:30.760
mother and you know, not having a stable home and

1235
01:07:30.800 --> 01:07:34.159
being any one of those would have greatly affected her

1236
01:07:34.199 --> 01:07:34.559
into it.

1237
01:07:34.519 --> 01:07:37.239
Out, I think, And actually, you know, I think she

1238
01:07:37.519 --> 01:07:40.519
would have made something of herself even even if she

1239
01:07:40.519 --> 01:07:42.559
hadn't met Ted. It seemed like she was on a path,

1240
01:07:42.880 --> 01:07:45.599
you know, moving to New York, working as a realtor

1241
01:07:45.719 --> 01:07:47.679
getting involved in the art world. It seems like she

1242
01:07:47.800 --> 01:07:49.920
was determined to overcome a lot of those things in

1243
01:07:49.960 --> 01:07:51.960
her past. So you do have to give her credit for,

1244
01:07:52.320 --> 01:07:55.679
you know, coming a long way from all that damage

1245
01:07:55.719 --> 01:07:56.519
that she went through.

1246
01:07:56.960 --> 01:07:59.400
I think a lot of people, most people have something

1247
01:07:59.400 --> 01:08:02.199
in their child so that they have to overcome. Sure, right, Yeah,

1248
01:08:02.320 --> 01:08:06.079
Generosa obviously had more than most, but we all overcome

1249
01:08:06.199 --> 01:08:08.960
certain things and we live our lives with this resolve

1250
01:08:09.000 --> 01:08:11.400
that I'm going to do better than you know, maybe

1251
01:08:11.400 --> 01:08:13.000
what was done on to me, Like I'm going to

1252
01:08:13.039 --> 01:08:15.400
be a better parent or you know, whatever it is. Yeah,

1253
01:08:15.400 --> 01:08:17.560
I think a lot of us, most of people I know,

1254
01:08:17.720 --> 01:08:20.560
have overcome something really hard from their younger years.

1255
01:08:20.560 --> 01:08:23.479
Oh, that's very true. In the beginning of their relationship,

1256
01:08:23.479 --> 01:08:27.159
it seems like Tad was attracted to Generosa's fiery nature.

1257
01:08:27.239 --> 01:08:29.800
Like the thing that first attracted him was that, you know,

1258
01:08:29.880 --> 01:08:31.920
she called him out when he didn't show up for

1259
01:08:32.000 --> 01:08:34.520
their appointment. It was like, that's rude, you waste my time.

1260
01:08:34.560 --> 01:08:37.319
And I think he really liked that. Obviously, over time

1261
01:08:37.399 --> 01:08:39.880
he became exhausted by it, or maybe it got worse

1262
01:08:40.079 --> 01:08:42.079
as well. But I'm wondering it. Do you think that

1263
01:08:42.159 --> 01:08:44.000
Ted It seems like he was the kind of guy

1264
01:08:44.000 --> 01:08:46.119
who felt like he could fix things, and I wonder

1265
01:08:46.159 --> 01:08:48.880
if he thought like he could fix Generosa.

1266
01:08:49.039 --> 01:08:51.640
Well, I don't know if there was anything to fix.

1267
01:08:51.720 --> 01:08:54.159
Until they got deeper into the marriage and they had

1268
01:08:54.239 --> 01:08:57.720
kids and they started accumulating wealth. It seems like that's

1269
01:08:57.720 --> 01:08:58.920
when she changed the most.

1270
01:08:59.239 --> 01:08:59.520
Yeah.

1271
01:08:59.800 --> 01:09:01.399
True. I have a question for you, though, do you

1272
01:09:01.399 --> 01:09:03.199
think that they were ever really in love?

1273
01:09:03.800 --> 01:09:06.720
I get the sense that they were in their early days.

1274
01:09:06.760 --> 01:09:08.399
You know, I didn't talk much about it, but it

1275
01:09:08.399 --> 01:09:10.720
seemed like they had a strong bond and they really

1276
01:09:10.760 --> 01:09:12.880
had a lot in common, and it seemed like they

1277
01:09:12.960 --> 01:09:15.439
balanced each other out really well. I think it just

1278
01:09:15.479 --> 01:09:17.720
got to a point where, you know, she just got

1279
01:09:17.720 --> 01:09:20.239
more and more angry. It seems like more volatile.

1280
01:09:20.600 --> 01:09:23.720
Well, when we first started dating. Not that I'm volatile

1281
01:09:23.880 --> 01:09:26.880
or temperamental, but I could be described as fire.

1282
01:09:28.159 --> 01:09:28.319
Yeah.

1283
01:09:28.399 --> 01:09:31.000
Were you attracted to that? And has it worn you

1284
01:09:31.079 --> 01:09:31.880
down over the years?

1285
01:09:34.199 --> 01:09:37.159
I think I was attracted to that because my nature

1286
01:09:37.239 --> 01:09:39.600
is like maybe a little more calm, and I think

1287
01:09:39.680 --> 01:09:42.119
we do balance each other out in a lot of ways.

1288
01:09:42.159 --> 01:09:42.359
Yeah.

1289
01:09:42.359 --> 01:09:45.279
So I think if you were at the extreme that

1290
01:09:45.399 --> 01:09:48.359
like Generosa seems to have been, that would have been

1291
01:09:48.359 --> 01:09:49.039
a different story.

1292
01:09:49.079 --> 01:09:51.920
But I have calmed down over the years, see a

1293
01:09:51.920 --> 01:09:52.319
little bit.

1294
01:09:52.359 --> 01:09:55.199
But I never felt like you were, you know, really

1295
01:09:55.399 --> 01:09:59.079
extreme in terms of you know, being that fiery. But yeah,

1296
01:09:59.119 --> 01:10:01.600
we talked a little bit about this earlier. But Danny

1297
01:10:01.920 --> 01:10:04.520
seems like the opposite of Ted Ammon in a lot

1298
01:10:04.520 --> 01:10:07.640
of ways. Do you think that that's what attracted Generosa

1299
01:10:07.680 --> 01:10:10.159
to him? Like she was looking for something completely different

1300
01:10:10.239 --> 01:10:12.000
from the marriage that she had been in.

1301
01:10:12.359 --> 01:10:14.159
So this case reminds me a little bit of one

1302
01:10:14.199 --> 01:10:16.680
that we did like six months ago. It was the

1303
01:10:16.760 --> 01:10:21.520
Kissel case. And do you remember that Nancy was attracted

1304
01:10:21.560 --> 01:10:25.439
to like a rougher guy too, And I think, yeah,

1305
01:10:25.479 --> 01:10:28.760
I think you just want something different, yea, And those

1306
01:10:29.359 --> 01:10:32.319
like the guy in this case really would be indebted

1307
01:10:32.319 --> 01:10:35.000
to her, like he really needed money, and I think

1308
01:10:35.039 --> 01:10:38.960
that made him more loyal and probably made trying to

1309
01:10:39.239 --> 01:10:43.239
maybe do some illegal activities. Yeah, but everyone likes all

1310
01:10:43.279 --> 01:10:45.760
women like a bad boy. That's what attracted me to you.

1311
01:10:46.800 --> 01:10:49.239
So true, so true. We also talked about this a

1312
01:10:49.279 --> 01:10:51.880
little bit, but the installing of the cameras inside the

1313
01:10:51.880 --> 01:10:55.279
house is such an incredible violation of Ted's privacy and

1314
01:10:55.319 --> 01:10:59.039
I wonder how someone could justify that to themselves, Like

1315
01:10:59.079 --> 01:11:02.000
I'm sure that gen Rosa and Danny felt like, yeah,

1316
01:11:02.000 --> 01:11:04.479
we're perfectly justified in doing this, But I just have

1317
01:11:04.520 --> 01:11:05.079
a hard time.

1318
01:11:05.159 --> 01:11:07.000
Oh yeah, I don't think they felt bad about that

1319
01:11:07.079 --> 01:11:09.159
at all. I think that was just what they felt

1320
01:11:09.199 --> 01:11:11.199
like they needed to do and they wanted to get

1321
01:11:11.279 --> 01:11:13.880
ted and get ted as much money as they could.

1322
01:11:13.920 --> 01:11:16.399
So no, I feel like, of what I'm guessing is

1323
01:11:16.399 --> 01:11:19.840
about to happen is probably the cameras are really not

1324
01:11:19.960 --> 01:11:21.279
the worst thing that they're going to do.

1325
01:11:21.840 --> 01:11:24.720
Yeah, maybe not. It also bothers me that he was

1326
01:11:24.960 --> 01:11:26.880
he had the camera. That's like, he had his laptop

1327
01:11:27.119 --> 01:11:29.800
and he was like all of his working crew was

1328
01:11:29.840 --> 01:11:33.840
watching this video too, Like nobody was like Danny, this

1329
01:11:33.920 --> 01:11:35.359
is really not cool.

1330
01:11:35.560 --> 01:11:37.520
Like, I mean, we all do things in private that

1331
01:11:37.560 --> 01:11:40.319
we would not do in front of someone else, and

1332
01:11:40.399 --> 01:11:42.960
for that to be violated is yeah. You know, I'm

1333
01:11:42.960 --> 01:11:44.960
not saying that I do anything weird or gross, but

1334
01:11:45.079 --> 01:11:45.680
you know, I.

1335
01:11:45.640 --> 01:11:49.359
Mean, yeah, it's really that bothers me so much. Just

1336
01:11:49.520 --> 01:11:51.359
that thought of being on.

1337
01:11:51.239 --> 01:11:54.560
Campus on the camera that I have in your office. Okay,

1338
01:11:55.079 --> 01:11:57.520
no to sell that is not good. I would never

1339
01:11:57.560 --> 01:12:00.479
ever ever violate your private course. We are so spectful

1340
01:12:00.479 --> 01:12:03.159
of each other's privacy. I have never once, I don't

1341
01:12:03.159 --> 01:12:05.439
think ever once looked in your phone. I would never

1342
01:12:05.520 --> 01:12:07.640
do that. I don't look in your wallet. I've never

1343
01:12:07.680 --> 01:12:10.359
looked at your computer search history. Just and you've given

1344
01:12:10.399 --> 01:12:12.800
me no reason. I mean, this comes again from like

1345
01:12:12.880 --> 01:12:16.479
this privileged place where you've never given me a reason Yeah,

1346
01:12:16.600 --> 01:12:20.239
to you know, to doubt your loyalty. But gosh, it's

1347
01:12:20.319 --> 01:12:22.760
just it's really Yeah, it was always shocking to me.

1348
01:12:22.800 --> 01:12:25.159
How many people you know do that to their.

1349
01:12:25.159 --> 01:12:28.159
Maybe yeah, I'll come back next time for part two.

1350
01:12:28.399 --> 01:12:31.520
Wait, I have one more question. Oh did I forgot

1351
01:12:31.520 --> 01:12:34.479
her name? Tenosa? Ever meet her? She never met her

1352
01:12:34.520 --> 01:12:35.079
birth father.

1353
01:12:35.239 --> 01:12:38.199
As far as I know, she's never met Generosa. No,

1354
01:12:44.800 --> 01:12:47.640
this case got me thinking a lot about being really,

1355
01:12:47.680 --> 01:12:51.319
really wealthy. Think I was thinking whether Ted Ammon was

1356
01:12:51.640 --> 01:12:54.920
the wealthiest person we've talked about on our podcast, because

1357
01:12:55.000 --> 01:12:57.399
probably I've done quite a few cases of wealthy people.

1358
01:12:57.399 --> 01:12:59.319
You've done a few as well, but for some reason

1359
01:12:59.560 --> 01:13:02.119
I've gratated toward a lot. He actually was the second

1360
01:13:02.199 --> 01:13:03.840
wealthiest person we've talked.

1361
01:13:03.680 --> 01:13:07.039
About, Okay, honey, and yes, honey and Barry Sherman.

1362
01:13:07.159 --> 01:13:12.560
He was worth approximately three point two billion dollars money. Yes,

1363
01:13:12.760 --> 01:13:15.199
that's like four point eight billion today. So Ted was

1364
01:13:15.239 --> 01:13:17.640
worth at the time of his death about ninety seven

1365
01:13:17.680 --> 01:13:20.760
million dollars one hundred and eighty million today. So it's

1366
01:13:20.800 --> 01:13:23.439
just the scale of that, Like the enormous scale of

1367
01:13:23.680 --> 01:13:26.600
Barry Sherman's wealth was just like out of this world.

1368
01:13:26.920 --> 01:13:31.640
I do have some hypothetical questions for you about being wealthy. Okay,

1369
01:13:31.800 --> 01:13:33.800
This is not the question of like, what would you

1370
01:13:33.840 --> 01:13:35.840
do if you were really wealthy, because I know your

1371
01:13:35.880 --> 01:13:36.479
answer to that.

1372
01:13:36.720 --> 01:13:38.119
Okay, what is my answer to that?

1373
01:13:38.199 --> 01:13:40.079
You would give a lot of the charity, you would

1374
01:13:40.119 --> 01:13:42.359
help people, and we'd buy a nice house on Lake Michigan.

1375
01:13:42.600 --> 01:13:45.439
Okay, yeah, because we already have a nice life, and

1376
01:13:45.760 --> 01:13:48.680
the thought of having like a billion dollars is really

1377
01:13:48.680 --> 01:13:53.039
inconceivable to me because I think probably kind of simple people,

1378
01:13:53.880 --> 01:13:56.920
and I mean, I don't know, we have everything we

1379
01:13:57.039 --> 01:13:59.760
kind of want already, not really, but you know kind of. Okay,

1380
01:13:59.800 --> 01:14:04.199
so that made that want maybe like another car, I don't.

1381
01:14:03.960 --> 01:14:06.560
Know, well, that maybe will guide me to what you're

1382
01:14:06.600 --> 01:14:08.680
going how you're going to answer these questions. I wanted

1383
01:14:08.680 --> 01:14:11.079
to give you some trade off questions. So the first one,

1384
01:14:11.159 --> 01:14:14.039
you can get fifty million dollars tomorrow, but for the

1385
01:14:14.079 --> 01:14:18.000
rest of your life, a private investigator hired by your enemies,

1386
01:14:18.159 --> 01:14:21.359
let's say maybe a rival podcast, is allowed to follow

1387
01:14:21.439 --> 01:14:23.319
you around and spy on you all the time, so

1388
01:14:23.359 --> 01:14:26.279
you never know when you're being watched. I think it's

1389
01:14:26.439 --> 01:14:27.800
you take the money, the fifty millions.

1390
01:14:27.840 --> 01:14:31.199
You mean like like like a private camera.

1391
01:14:31.439 --> 01:14:33.199
No, no, just somebody following you around.

1392
01:14:33.239 --> 01:14:35.159
I'm really boring. They'd be like, why does she go

1393
01:14:35.239 --> 01:14:38.399
to Costco so much? Really, Tina another trip to home goods?

1394
01:14:38.439 --> 01:14:40.119
Like sure, follow me, I don't care.

1395
01:14:40.439 --> 01:14:41.760
Yeah, okay, that's fair.

1396
01:14:41.840 --> 01:14:42.359
That's about you.

1397
01:14:43.000 --> 01:14:46.520
Same same, I think I'm pretty not that the most

1398
01:14:46.560 --> 01:14:50.079
exciting in the world. They picked me up going to

1399
01:14:50.239 --> 01:14:51.680
McDonald's on Sunday.

1400
01:14:51.359 --> 01:14:53.319
Morning, become friends, and I'd be like, hey, do you

1401
01:14:53.359 --> 01:14:54.880
want to go with me? Let's go, Let's go to

1402
01:14:54.920 --> 01:14:55.920
Crumble Cookie.

1403
01:14:55.840 --> 01:14:58.800
To hang up by the pool. Right yeah, yeah, all right,

1404
01:14:58.840 --> 01:15:02.760
So similar question if you could have fifty million dollars tomorrow.

1405
01:15:02.760 --> 01:15:06.159
But the catch is that you're famous, and well everywhere

1406
01:15:06.199 --> 01:15:08.920
you go, you go to Costco, you go to a store,

1407
01:15:09.039 --> 01:15:11.800
you go to a restaurant, everyone knows who you are

1408
01:15:11.840 --> 01:15:15.520
and they're always approaching you. They're asking for favors or

1409
01:15:15.640 --> 01:15:19.039
offering you investment opportunities. Do you take the money in

1410
01:15:19.039 --> 01:15:19.600
that situation?

1411
01:15:19.640 --> 01:15:21.680
I mean, I think everyone knows. We don't post pictures,

1412
01:15:21.880 --> 01:15:24.039
not that we're famous, We're not famous by any stretch

1413
01:15:24.039 --> 01:15:26.399
of the imagination. But I would like my privacy, I

1414
01:15:26.520 --> 01:15:31.079
like my anonimity. So you would turn down million fifty million? Well?

1415
01:15:31.840 --> 01:15:35.239
Am I living in my current amount of you know,

1416
01:15:35.279 --> 01:15:38.119
I still have my current amount of wealth though.

1417
01:15:38.399 --> 01:15:40.479
Yeah, yeah, you're not going to lose your money. You're

1418
01:15:40.479 --> 01:15:43.119
just not going to get the extra fifty million. Okay,

1419
01:15:43.159 --> 01:15:45.640
fair enough, all right, one more of these so you

1420
01:15:45.720 --> 01:15:48.479
can become super wealthy. But to get that wealth, you

1421
01:15:48.560 --> 01:15:51.680
have to sign a generosa clause, which is meaning you

1422
01:15:51.720 --> 01:15:55.520
cut off all your current friends and acquaintances. You can

1423
01:15:55.560 --> 01:15:57.920
make new friends, but you never know if those new

1424
01:15:57.920 --> 01:16:00.039
friends are just your friends because you're.

1425
01:16:00.199 --> 01:16:04.840
Wealthy, including my my husband. No, no, oh, because then

1426
01:16:04.880 --> 01:16:07.520
I would if I don't ever have to talk to

1427
01:16:07.560 --> 01:16:10.960
him again. I'm in Wow, I did not a million

1428
01:16:11.039 --> 01:16:12.880
dollars that I never have to talk to about. Are

1429
01:16:12.880 --> 01:16:17.960
you kidding me? Wide, No, I'm kidding. I mean I

1430
01:16:18.000 --> 01:16:21.159
am not that again. I feel sometimes these questions are like,

1431
01:16:21.880 --> 01:16:24.840
we're we're good to find it. We're not like rich,

1432
01:16:24.880 --> 01:16:27.640
but we're fine. We're comfortable. So it comes from me

1433
01:16:27.720 --> 01:16:29.680
answering from a place of privilege.

1434
01:16:29.239 --> 01:16:31.840
Where comfortable or comfortable comfortable.

1435
01:16:32.000 --> 01:16:37.399
I'm comfortable, So you know, we're you know, we're also old.

1436
01:16:37.399 --> 01:16:39.640
That's what I want to say. We're old and not

1437
01:16:39.760 --> 01:16:42.079
that old, but you know we're older, so we're established

1438
01:16:42.119 --> 01:16:43.720
and you know, so.

1439
01:16:43.760 --> 01:16:45.359
It might be a different answer now than.

1440
01:16:45.560 --> 01:16:48.920
Twenty years ago. Might have been different. Yeah. Right, Although

1441
01:16:49.279 --> 01:16:50.960
I went to the groceres. Every time I go to

1442
01:16:51.000 --> 01:16:53.399
the grocery store, go get gas. These days, it's like

1443
01:16:53.560 --> 01:16:56.479
holy cow, like everything is more expensive.

1444
01:16:56.680 --> 01:16:59.119
Yeah, it really is. I have one more question for you.

1445
01:16:59.159 --> 01:17:02.800
This is really important question. Okay, So Generosa was designing

1446
01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:04.079
a Jetson's themed town.

1447
01:17:04.119 --> 01:17:05.840
I was hoping you were going to ask a question

1448
01:17:05.960 --> 01:17:06.159
like this.

1449
01:17:06.319 --> 01:17:08.680
So if you were going to renovate a house and

1450
01:17:08.720 --> 01:17:11.119
it had to be based on a sixties or seventies

1451
01:17:11.199 --> 01:17:13.000
TV show, what would you.

1452
01:17:13.439 --> 01:17:18.000
Oh, you know the answer to this, Brady Bunch. Yeah,

1453
01:17:18.039 --> 01:17:19.920
probably Brady Bunge. I don't know if we've ever talked

1454
01:17:19.920 --> 01:17:22.000
about this, but I am a huge Brady Bunch fan.

1455
01:17:22.079 --> 01:17:24.800
I always have been, always will be. I haven't watched

1456
01:17:24.840 --> 01:17:27.039
it in a million years, but you know, when I

1457
01:17:27.079 --> 01:17:29.319
was a kid growing up, I just always thought, oh,

1458
01:17:29.479 --> 01:17:31.920
I just wanted to be a Brady Yeah. Yeah, I

1459
01:17:31.920 --> 01:17:33.359
thought you were going to ask what I would put

1460
01:17:33.399 --> 01:17:37.279
in my house. And the thing that I really want

1461
01:17:37.840 --> 01:17:41.439
is a laundry room that's upstairs. Yeah, Like, why is

1462
01:17:41.479 --> 01:17:43.479
that not a thing? Because right now we have like

1463
01:17:43.600 --> 01:17:45.680
a two story house and then we have a basement,

1464
01:17:45.800 --> 01:17:48.800
but our laundry room is on the main floor. Like

1465
01:17:48.880 --> 01:17:50.720
you know a lot of houses today, you walking through

1466
01:17:50.720 --> 01:17:52.880
the garage and then you have your mudroom and that's

1467
01:17:52.880 --> 01:17:55.079
for the laundry room. And it's fine because at our

1468
01:17:55.159 --> 01:17:57.359
previous house, the lunder room was actually in the basement,

1469
01:17:57.399 --> 01:17:59.119
and you know, I had to go down two floors.

1470
01:17:59.159 --> 01:18:01.960
So I just that we could design a house where

1471
01:18:02.119 --> 01:18:04.159
the laundry room is on the well.

1472
01:18:04.159 --> 01:18:07.319
What do you think of Generosa's project where she had

1473
01:18:07.439 --> 01:18:11.039
she put five washing machines and five dryers in the house.

1474
01:18:11.199 --> 01:18:13.399
I do know some people who have like you know

1475
01:18:14.279 --> 01:18:17.439
who do have like one one up and down went down. Yeah,

1476
01:18:17.479 --> 01:18:20.720
and I feel like five. I don't need that many.

1477
01:18:20.760 --> 01:18:22.479
I don't think she needed that many, but I guess

1478
01:18:22.479 --> 01:18:23.000
she was.

1479
01:18:23.159 --> 01:18:25.399
She did it so that the people who did the

1480
01:18:25.439 --> 01:18:28.680
laundry could like all the living No. No, that this

1481
01:18:28.840 --> 01:18:30.279
was at the beach House, so I don't think they

1482
01:18:30.279 --> 01:18:31.800
had living help at the beach House.

1483
01:18:31.880 --> 01:18:35.399
Well, all of these questions, honestly are irrelevant because we're

1484
01:18:35.399 --> 01:18:37.640
never going to have four hundred million dollars.

1485
01:18:37.720 --> 01:18:39.880
I think you could design a Brady Bunch themed house

1486
01:18:39.920 --> 01:18:43.399
for you know, a super expensive amount of money.

1487
01:18:43.479 --> 01:18:46.399
Yeah. No, yeah, I think that I wouldn't want a

1488
01:18:46.479 --> 01:18:47.119
huge house.

1489
01:18:48.680 --> 01:18:49.920
Yeah, I was really torn.

1490
01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:52.640
I'm sorry, I'm so boring everyone. I really truly am.

1491
01:18:52.840 --> 01:18:54.680
When I was thinking about my answer to the question,

1492
01:18:54.800 --> 01:18:58.600
I was I'm really halfway between designing a get Smart

1493
01:18:58.640 --> 01:19:00.479
I know you're gonna get smart, I mean all the

1494
01:19:00.520 --> 01:19:03.760
gadgets and everything, or a Batman themed house. I mean

1495
01:19:03.760 --> 01:19:05.279
that would be that would be pretty cool too.

1496
01:19:05.359 --> 01:19:05.520
Yeah.

1497
01:19:05.600 --> 01:19:08.039
Yeah, the Batman Show was so cool.

1498
01:19:08.199 --> 01:19:12.520
I would love decorating underground dwelling. We're watching Paradise right

1499
01:19:12.520 --> 01:19:16.840
now on Hulu with sterlie K Brown and James Marsden.

1500
01:19:17.680 --> 01:19:20.680
Sorry, I'm time every time you say James Barston.

1501
01:19:21.880 --> 01:19:25.399
Like they're both beautiful men, Like there's nothing objective about that. Well,

1502
01:19:25.520 --> 01:19:28.399
but I don't think it's giving anything which say they

1503
01:19:28.479 --> 01:19:31.880
kind of like live underground. So yeah, it's a good show.

1504
01:19:32.079 --> 01:19:32.560
Check it out.

1505
01:19:32.640 --> 01:19:34.840
It is a very good show. Well, once again, you've

1506
01:19:34.880 --> 01:19:39.279
wasted a perfectly good hour and twenty minutes listening to

1507
01:19:39.479 --> 01:19:41.239
Love Mary Kill. But we appreciate it.

1508
01:19:41.560 --> 01:19:43.640
If you would like to listen to the conclusion of

1509
01:19:43.680 --> 01:19:46.319
this episode, you only have one more part, right, please

1510
01:19:46.479 --> 01:19:49.840
consider joining us on Patreon, Patreon dot com slash Love

1511
01:19:49.880 --> 01:19:53.399
Mary Kill. We have only one tier. For the bargain

1512
01:19:53.560 --> 01:19:56.319
basement price of five dollars a month, you get early

1513
01:19:56.680 --> 01:20:00.319
ad free access, a bonus monthly episode.

1514
01:20:00.319 --> 01:20:02.239
Our undying gratitude.

1515
01:20:02.479 --> 01:20:05.000
Well, we have undying gratitude to all of our listeners

1516
01:20:05.039 --> 01:20:07.319
because I know it doesn't fit into everyone's budget. So

1517
01:20:07.319 --> 01:20:09.239
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1518
01:20:09.359 --> 01:20:11.760
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1519
01:20:11.800 --> 01:20:14.199
helping us. But hey, if you want to join Patreon too.

1520
01:20:14.560 --> 01:20:16.960
Until next time, don't kill your wife and don't kill

1521
01:20:17.000 --> 01:20:17.520
your husband.