A real estate mogul’s caretaker ‘jealously manipulated’ the ailing billionaire into traveling to Russia, where he left him to die an agonizing death so he could pocket a $2 million inheritance, an explosive lawsuit claims.
Allan H. Goldman’s family is suing his assistant Natalia Vostrikova, alleging that she spent years siphoning off $8.2 million of his wealth.
Goldman died in a St. Petersburg hospital on January 15, 2022, after multiple organ failure and a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
But his son Steven Gurney-Goldman, who filed the lawsuit in Nassau County, claims he was put to an early grave by his longtime employee, who allegedly isolated him from his family before taking him to Russia, where he died alone.
Vostrikova denies the accusations against her and insisted before the New York Post that she was Goldman’s ‘wife’.
Allan H. Goldman’s family is suing his caregiver Natalia Vostrikova, alleging she deliberately neglected him to hasten his death so she could pocket $2 million in inheritance.
Goldman died in a St. Petersburg hospital on January 15, 2022 after multiple organ failure and a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.
One lawsuit claims Vostrikova transported him from her New York home to Russia, where she left him to rot in bed.
But Goldman’s son claimed in the lawsuit that the $120,000-a-year caregiver refused to provide proper medication and care to his ward, causing sores so severe that they left bones exposed and caused the billionaire to lose 50 pounds.
Goldman was the son of real estate developer Sol Goldman, who once counted the Chrysler Building in his property portfolio.
He was worth at least $1 billion at the time of his death, sparking an probate-style battle over his enormous fortune.
But in the latest development, her son, in his capacity as executor of his father’s estate, accused Vostrikova of isolating him from friends and family, something he says only increased when he learned of a $2 million donation in the billionaire’s will.
‘Defendant Vostrikova accelerated her efforts to systematically neglect and intentionally harm Mr. Goldman in order to exacerbate and take advantage of his inabilities in order to (a) improperly transfer a significantly greater amount of money to herself from Mr. Goldman’s financial accounts, and ( b) ultimately hasten her death so that she could more quickly inherit under her estate plan,” the lawsuit reads.
By July 2021, Goldman’s Parkinson’s disease had left him largely incapacitated and that was when Vostrikova transferred him to Russia allegedly under the pretext of receiving treatment, according to the documents.
But instead of taking him to the hospital, Vostrikova booked a room at a luxurious five-star hotel and began putting Goldman through non-traditional clinics, “in an effort to avoid treating Mr. Goldman for Parkinson’s,” the lawsuit alleges.
The family claims her condition only worsened after Vostrikova neglected her personal hygiene and allowed sores to develop that became infected from contact with feces and urine.
Goldman’s son said in the litigation that the $120,000-a-year caregiver refused to provide proper medication and care to his ward, causing sores so severe they left bones exposed and caused the billionaire to lose 50 pounds.
Vostrikova denies the allegations against her and insisted they were “a lot of lies.”
Meanwhile, she was “enjoying an extravagant and luxurious vacation in Moscow, spending tens of thousands of dollars on Mr. Goldman’s American Express.” […] and even bragging to certain people about their quality of life,” the lawsuit states.
Goldman’s son claims the family was denied updates or the opportunity to speak with his father as he lay in bed.
Finally, before his visa expired, Vostrikova called a doctor who noticed that the billionaire weighed only 138 pounds and was covered in multiple “unbearable” ulcers, according to the complaint.
But instead of sending him for admission to a Moscow hospital as the doctor urged, the defendant arranged a perilous trip to a hospital 400 miles north of St. Petersburg, where he died just a day after arriving, his family maintains.
Autopsies by doctors in Russia and the United States found that he had an untreated bacterial infection that had left him with pneumonia and two liters of infected fluid in his chest cavity, causing his right lung to collapse, according to the documents.
It was also noted that he had. ‘multiple infected and ulcerated pressure sores on the heels, ankles, thighs, sacrum, shoulder blades and hand, several were allowed to develop for so long that they reached Mr Goldman’s bone, leading to septicemia and sepsis and the loss of more than 25 percent of body weight,” according to the lawsuit.
His children said they only learned of his death through an email from a Russian lawyer they had hired to investigate his situation and try to bring him home.
They claim that while he was alive, Vostrikova had been funneling her father’s money for her own benefit, including spending money on a five-bedroom home valued at $1.8 million in one of Long Island’s most exclusive neighborhoods.
However, she refuted the allegations in a statement to The Post.
Goldman’s family alleges that Vostrikova spent years siphoning off $8.2 million of her wealth in a lawsuit filed in Nassau County Supreme Court.
“It’s a bunch of lies,” Vostrikova said, describing herself as Goldman’s “wife.” She has accused the family of defamation in her own court papers.
Goldman’s ex-wife, Susan, confirmed that he and Vostrikova were romantically involved for up to 20 years and that she had taken him to Russia for stem cell treatment.
However, his daughter Stephanie Goldman responded to the claims.
‘My father didn’t think Natasha cared about him. “According to the nurses’ records, my father told a nurse that Natasha was pretending to care about him, but that pretending was better than nothing,” she said in legal documents.
“I do not believe he had the cognitive ability to make most decisions, including financial ones, much less the cognitive or physical ability to authorize and sign the checks he supposedly writes.”