A top cancer surgeon allegedly tricked an Upper East Side relative battling dementia into changing his will to inherit a $749,000 Carnegie Hill co-op, according to a lawsuit.
Anne Marie Eglof is trying to sell Jo Ann Paganetti's one-bedroom pad, despite objections from Paganetti's daughter, Georgia Lee Sarah Andrews.
Andrews said in a filing in Manhattan Supreme Court that Paganetti began showing signs of severe dementia in 2018 after suffering a stroke.
Despite adopting Ms. Andrews in 1966, Mr. Paganetti long pursued a relationship with his biological daughter, making her a beneficiary in his 1986 will and leaving her in a co-op on East 94th Street. , Ms. Andrews argued in legal documents.
Eglof, 58, a physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital, was involved when Paganetti, a former professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology, arrived at the Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in July 2023.
That same month, a lawyer representing Eglov appeared and forced Paganetti to sign what appeared to be estate planning documents, over the objections of doctors and while the older woman was “under the influence of psychotropic drugs.” The complaint says he tried to do so.
“During his involvement in the decedent's case, Dr. Eglof had taken steps to isolate the decedent from the rest of the family,” Andrews said in court documents.
The trust was established in March, and shares in the co-op were transferred to the trust by AKAM Living Services, a property management company also named as a defendant, by April 18.
DNA tests revealed that all three women are related, but it is unclear how this happened. Eglov was Paganetti's mother's maiden name.
Mr. Eglof also disputed whether Mr. Andrews was biologically related to Mr. Paganetti through his lawyer shortly after Mr. Andrews died on April 30 at the age of 86.
Ms Andrews is asking the court to block the sale of her mother's apartment, which was put on the market last month and was under contract by November 8.
Eglof, a neck and head cancer specialist who is also affiliated with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said he was unaware of the lawsuit and declined further comment.
