Judge allows newly discovered will, for now, in battle over Gage Park recluse's $11 million fortune
A group of the late Joseph Stancak’s relatives laying claim to part of the reclusive Southwest Sider’s unclaimed fortune failed Thursday to shoot down a recently uncovered will that would leave Stancak's entire $11 million estate to an inactive New York day care company.
But the judge who made the decision left the door open for Stancak’s relatives to take another crack at disputing the will down the road.
It's just the latest courtroom drama in the battle over the largest unclaimed estate in the nation's history.
Cook County Judge Daniel O. Tiernan also heard testimony Thursday from two men, Mansoor Afzal and Asad Mahmood, who say they witnessed Stancak sign the will at a New York real estate office in 2015.
Although their testimony on the details of the will signing differed at times, Tiernan approved the will that he allowed into evidence in December. The judge explained that state law required him to approve the will if witnesses testified that Stancak was present and of a clear state of mind.
"This is designed to be a limited hearing," the judge said. "It does not preclude a more formal will contest later on."
But the testimony describing the will signing just didn't add up, said Ashley Coppola, a lawyer representing many of the heirs who were in line for $100,000 payouts until the will was presented in court last year.
The ongoing fight over Stancak's fortune can be traced to the brick bungalow in the Gage Park neighborhood where Stancak lived and, unknown to his family and neighbors, accumulated his millions.
The man, described as neighbors as reclusive, died in December 2016 at 87, with no will then surfacing and no immediate family left behind. His $11 million fortune was the largest unclaimed estate in U.S. history and an immediate media sensation.
A search turned up more than 119 distant relatives around the world, and checks divvying up Stancak’s fortune were being prepared to be sent to them.
That was until a petition filed in June 2023 asked Tiernan to accept a newly turned-up will.
According to that will — dated Aug. 19, 2015 — Stancak left his entire estate to a New York company, Smart Kids Child Care Inc., and the company’s president, Mahmood.
"Children meant something to him," Mahmood testified Thursday. Mahmood testified that he witnessed Stancak sign the will that he only recently discovered late last year in his home while cleaning for a move.
In his testimony, Mahmood said the company is inactive and has never had a physical location. Mahmood said he did not stand to benefit from the fortune, even though he is president of the day care company co-founded by Afzal's father.
Afzal testified that his father knew Stancak from when his father lived in Chicago in the late 1980s and 1990s. He testified that his father knew Stancak because they were both electricians. Afzal's father died the same year as Stancak, though he said he only learned of Stancak's death one week ago from Mahmood.
Stancak sometimes visited Afzal's father in New York after his father moved there in 2002, Afzal testified. He said his father co-founded the day care company and, in 2015, invited Afzal to witness the signing of the will.
Coppola cross-examined each of the men and pressed them on details about the will signing. Each man had different answers about where a second, lost copy of the will was allegedly signed. Afzal said it was signed a day earlier at a diner in Queens, while Mahmood said it was signed at a real estate office in the same borough, though he couldn't produce a date for when that happened.
In a petition filed in court this month, Coppola and other attorneys representing Stancak's relatives accuse Mahmood of forging the will. The petition claims Stancak's health was failing in the years before he died, making it unlikely he could travel cross country. When Stancak died in 2016, first responders found him wearing a jacket in the home's empty bathtub with heat and electricity turned off.
Gregory Markwell, the current administrator of Stancak's estate and lawyer representing Mahmood, said he would reply to the petition by the next court hearing, scheduled for Aug. 6.