Issue #27, September 29, 2006

DANNY PELOSI, IN JAIL, CHALLENGES AMMON WILL

By Dan Rattiner

Here’s an odd twist. The local East End man who was convicted of murdering a wealthy financier in his home in East Hampton for his money in 2001 is now from his jail cell suing the estate that now controls this money in order to get some of what he could not get by force.

This case, as I am sure you will recall, was one of the most sensational crimes in this town when it took place that August. Electrician Daniel Pelosi broke into the home of Manhattan financier Ted Ammon in the middle of the night, bludgeoned Ammon to death in his bed, then dismantled and removed the video surveillance system laptop that Pelosi had installed in that home because the video on the hard drive would have shown him in the act. It was never found. But some evidence was presented that suggested he had thrown the laptop into Shinnecock Bay.

The trail of what was first reported to be an $80 million fortune worked like this. Before that date, it belonged to Ted Ammon and his wife Generosa and their two adopted children. The marriage was not going well. The pair had separated and things had gotten ugly. Generosa and the kids had the apartment in town. Ted had the country house.

Daniel Pelosi came into the picture because Ted Ammon wanted to have a surveillance camera installed and someone had recommended Pelosi as the electrician who could do it. Soon thereafter, Daniel Pelosi began an affair with Generosa Ammon, left his own wife and kids in their home in Manorville, moved into Manhattan with Generosa, and then began hearing sad tales from his love interest about all the money her husband had and how he was lying about the amount. Daniel then killed Ted, which meant that however much that fortune was now belonged to his girlfriend. After that, in a brief ceremony not long after Ted Ammons’ funeral, Pelosi married Generosa Ammon. Some of this fortune should now be wending its way over to Pelosi is how it seemed to be playing out.

Pelosi now began living the high life as the new husband of this wealthy widow. Over the period of the next six months, he ran through a reported $1 million, much of it gambled away in Vegas. The relationship cooled, but did not break. And then Generosa Ammon developed breast cancer and within three months, died. In her will, she left the bulk of her estate to her two children, now age twelve. But she also left a small home in Center Moriches worth $700,000 and $2 million in cash to her new husband. However, all that had to go to expensive lawyers in his unsuccessful bid to beat the rap, which failed after a jury began to see his alibis and stories unravel. He is now serving 25 years to life in jail.

Pelosi’s latest request comes from that jail, courtesy of an attorney he hired, James Reddy of Lindenhurst. Reddy, speaking before a panel of four judges in Brooklyn, told the court that Pelosi wanted to break open the will that had already been decided upon, so that some of the money could be sent to not only the Ammon children but the children of Pelosi’s first marriage, and to the child of the woman he married after Generosa Ammon, a lady he courted, who now lives in that house in Center Moriches with their baby. She visits him often.

“Pelosi doesn’t need any money in jail,” Reddy told the judges. “But he has a spouse and children and he would like to be able to take care of them.” He was, after all, Generosa’s husband.

A man named Frank Bolz, an attorney representing the legal guardian for one of the two Ammon children, was present at the hearing and raised his objections, calling Pelosi’s case incredible and utterly self-serving.

There’s a moral here somewhere, but I don’t know what it is.