The New Jersey widow, who was paid out by JP Morgan in a fierce battle with her husband's $53,000 pension, received a surprise check on the overall total from a pair of strangers who “touched” her light letter, the Post learned.
Elaine Silverberg, 73, was caught up in a 13-year feud and reclaimed money from the country's biggest lender.
The battle between David vs. Goliath, a grandmother in New Jersey, was reported exclusively by the November Post – attracting the attention of two insurance executives over 600 miles away in North Carolina.
Roy Messer, a 57-year-old health insurance broker in Charlotte, and his 57-year-old business partner, Bill Rice, said they were shocked by a penny pinch from a bank run by Jamie Dimon and put the matter into his own hands.
“I couldn't believe they didn't want to do the right thing. There's no doubt that her husband wanted the money to go to her and his children,” Rice said.
“For Jamie Dimon, I think this is like nickel falling out of his pocket. I want to believe he just doesn't know (about this).”
Messer, who served in the Marines between 1986 and 1989, said he “touched” Silverberg's story and said that wiring money to her was “the right thing to do.”
“I don't know her. I could have turned the pages very easily, but when something like that reaches out to you and grabs you, I look at it and what if it was my mother?” he said in the post.
Silverberg stunned at the gesture, saying, “I have restored my faith in humanity.”
“It's amazing that such kindness exists in this crazy world we live in. I was amazed at their extreme generosity,” she told the Post.
JPMorgan declined to comment, but a senior source within the bank said the rules governing pension funds would prohibit exceptions from being engraved.
Jpmorgan Insiders told the Post in December that the bank would never set back after the Grinch at the bank rejected Silverberg's repeated pleas and refused to hand over her husband Mel's $331 pension pot.
According to former government manager Silverberg, the totally vested cash pile is worth an estimated $53,000.
However, JPMorgan Bean Counters said until 1979, Mel, a former system analyst at Chase Manhattan Bank, was unable to fill in the necessary form before he unexpectedly died at the age of 43 from multiple organ failures in 1988.
Chase Manhattan merged with JPMorgan in 2000. The Wall Street giant recorded a record profit of $58.5 billion last year, with Dimon earnings of $39 million.
The Ronald Reagan administration passed the Retirement Equity Act in 1984, so spouses like Silverberg would automatically benefit from the death of their loved one.
JP Morgan claims he wrote a letter to Mel on three separate occasions. His widow says none of the communications have arrived at the family home.
She said she could dig up documents that the pension manager certified that he contacted MEL in 1990.
Silverberg has been appointed to New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and former Bronx Rep Elliot Engel to persuade the company to change their minds.
