A Chicago judge has rejected an attempt to nullify a will that allegedly left $11 million to a dormant daycare company.
Cook County Judge Daniel O. Tiernan made the decision Thursday after hearing testimony from two men who say they witnessed the late Joseph Stancak sign the will the year before he died at age 87 in 2016.
Mansoor Afzal and Asad Mahmood said they saw Stancak, a longtime inmate who lived in a modest five-bedroom home in Gage Park, sign the will at a New York real estate office in 2015.
Tiernan, in turn, approved the will into evidence in December, citing how state law required him to do so. The law requires jurists to approve a will if witnesses testified that they were present and in possession of a clear state of mind.
The judge, however, denied that the day’s proceedings were simply paving the way for an inevitable legal battle between Stancak’s 119 surviving relatives, who claimed that the fortune the man amassed over his lifetime would be divided among them.
Joseph Stancak (not pictured) left $11 million when he died in 2016. With no apparent will, officials considered the fortune to be distributed among 119 family members, as you can see in this scroll compiled by attorneys Rodney and Kenneth Piercey.
Stancak lived in the Chicago suburb of Gage Park, where he rarely left his modest home on South Troy Street. A new will was found there last year, sparking a legal battle that is already underway.
“This is designed to be a limited hearing,” the judge said, as family members had claimed no will had been drawn up at the time of Stancak’s death.
“This does not preclude a more formal challenge to the will later.”
The ruling served as the latest installment in a nearly eight-year saga surrounding Stancak’s fortune, uncovered by state officials after his death in December 2016.
Stancak, an unseemly man who sometimes walked down his street with his hands clasped behind his back, had $21,000 in two Bank of America checking accounts, but he had a wealth of assets in mutual funds or individual securities.
In total, they amounted to more than $11 million, making the fortune the largest unclaimed estate in American history, due to the absence of an obvious will.
When the treasurer’s office received reports of these accounts, staff worked frantically to tackle riches of historic proportions, successfully locating more than 100 of the man’s distant relatives, including a woman who lives less than five miles west of Stancak’s home but who had no idea he existed.
They were each entitled to receive payments of $100,000 until the will was filed in court last year, paving the way for a legal fight of epic proportions.
It came in the form of a petition filed in June 2023 asking Tiernan to accept a newly drafted will, which left his entire estate to a New York company, Smart Kids Child Care Inc, and the company’s president, Mahmood.
Cook County Judge Daniel O. Tiernan made the decision Thursday, after hearing testimony from two men accused of falsifying the newly surfaced document in 2015.
Stancak, a scruffy-looking man who sometimes walked down the street with his hands clasped behind his back, had $21,000 in two Bank of America checking accounts but owned a large amount of assets in mutual funds or individual securities. Altogether, they amounted to more than $11 million, making his fortune the largest unclaimed estate in U.S. history.
As the treasurer’s office received reports on these accounts, staff worked frantically to address the riches of historic proportions, locating more than 100 of the man’s relatives, like Anna Madeja (middle), who lives less than five miles from Stancak’s house. They were all in line to receive $100,000 payments until the will was filed in court last year, paving the way for a fight.
On Thursday, Mahmood detailed his ties to the man in question, saying he knew him through the son of the nursery’s original founder, Afzal.
Afzal testified that his father knew Stancak since he lived in Chicago in the late 1980s and 1990s, when they both worked as electricians.
He said his father died the same year as Stancak and that he learned of Stancak’s death a week ago from Mahmood.
Mahmood told the judge how she allegedly witnessed Stancak sign the will she discovered last year in her home while cleaning for a move, while also claiming her daycare business is inactive and has never had a physical location.
Afzal said Stancak sometimes visited Afzal’s father in New York after he moved there in 2002, after which he co-founded the daycare company.
In 2015, he invited Afzal to witness the signing of his purported will, Afzal said Thursday.
“Children meant something to him,” Mahmood added.
Tiernan went on to approve the will being entered into evidence, as the lawyer representing many of the heirs who were in line to receive the large payments accused Mahmood of forging the will.
One of the men told the judge that he allegedly witnessed Stancak signing the will he discovered late last year in his home while cleaning for a move, while claiming that his daycare business is dormant and has never had a physical location. The case will continue in August.
In a petition filed this month, legal scholar Ashley Coppola made that argument, while citing how Stancak had health problems in the years before his death.
This, he said, would make it highly unlikely that he was planning to move across the country as the couple claimed.
Gregory Markwell, administrator of Stancak’s estate and a lawyer representing Mahmood, said he would respond to the petition at the next court hearing, scheduled for the first week of August.
The son of Polish immigrants, Stancak was born in Chicago in 1929. His parents moved there after living in New Jersey for two decades.
He had six siblings: Mary, Paul, Anna, John, Helen and Frances. Only Anna and John married, but none of the siblings had children.
Stancak’s neighbors in suburban Chicago said C.B.S. that the old man was quiet and frugal, and was often seen doing home repairs by himself.
He lived on South Troy Street in a modest $325,500 home, listed as a 5-bedroom, two-bathroom single-family home on Redfin.
According to authorities, the only evidence that Stancak possessed any kind of wealth was his boat, called the “Easy.” Public records show that Stancak renewed his license to sail the boat annually before he turned 80.
When he died in 2016, first responders found him wearing a jacket in the home’s empty bathtub with the heat and electricity turned off.
Relatives were found throughout the United States and Europe and, after taxes, would receive on average about $60,000.
