Brokers duped NYC man with dementia into bad $2M investment: lawsuit

An Upper West Side man with dementia leapt to his death this summer — partially severing his foot along the way — after being convinced by a trio of financial advisors to buy $2 million worth of annuities he’d never be able to recoup, his widow said in a lawsuit.
Jay Jacobson’s condition “made him particularly erratic and unstable in the final stages of his life” and unable to manage his finances, Joan Jacobson said in court papers.
But between 2019 and 2023, the three brokers — Michelle Lister, Ronald Heywood and Michael Venable — sold Jacobson four different annuities at about $500,000 each starting when he was 79 — none with any death benefits, the suit claimed.
3 Joan Jacobson said her husband was not mentally capable of entering into a binding contract, such as those needed to purchase $2 million worth of annuities. instagram @abbey_nyc
The advisors who sold the annuities, a type of investment which gives buyers a fixed payment each month, took her husband’s money knowing it would have taken nearly a decade, until he was nearly 90, to get his funds back, the widow contends according to court papers.
Jacobson, who had retired from running a professional staffing company, committed suicide in July by jumping from a penthouse apartment at the Anagram Columbus Circle at 1 West 60th Street, landing on a third-floor balcony, police and residents said.
Part of his foot was severed during the gruesome incident.
3 Jacobson, who was suffering from dementia, committed suicide by jumping from 1 West 60th St. in July. G.N.Miller/NYPost
Joan Jacobson is suing Lister, Heywood, Venable, USAA Life Insurance Company, New York Life Insurance and Annuity, Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Massachusetts Mutual Life.
The financial advisors and the companies they repped knew or “should have known” that Jacobson was in decline, she said in her Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
3 Police at the scene where Jacobson died. G.N.Miller/NYPost
The advisors “knew or should have known that by virtue of his dementia, he lacked the capacity to enter into a legally binding contract,” the suit claimed.
She’s seeking $2 million in damages.
Heywood said he was unaware of the lawsuit and had no memory of selling annuities to Jacobson. Lister and Venable did not respond to requests for comment. A Charles Schwab spokesperson said they company had not yet had a chance to review the lawsuit.