Then Ammon was murdered. His battered body was found inside his $5-million summer home in East Hampton, N.Y. on Oct. 22. Nearly a month later, no suspects have been identified, no arrests made, no murder weapon found, and no clear motive given for the slaying. “It’s a big question mark,” says David Moore, chairman of 24/7 Media Inc., an online ad agency on whose board Ammon had served as chairman until this spring. “When I found out he was beaten, that was a real shock. And now there are all kinds of innuendoes and rumors, it’s even more mind-boggling. I’ve got a lot of curiosity about what really happened now.”
He’s not the only one. Suffolk County police will say only that the investigation continues. And there’s plenty to dig into. According to court papers, Ammon, who headed a private equity investment firm called Chancery Lane Capital, had made attempts to reduce his personal expenses after losing nearly half his $268 million fortune between the summer of 2000 and this spring as the stock market tumbled. He had tried and failed to sell two of his six residential properties in New York and England. After struggling to pay the $16,000 monthly maintenance payments for Coverwood, his 22-room English estate in the Surrey Hills (in the countryside near London), he finally found a buyer for the estate, then valued at about 5 million pounds. But his wife apparently blocked the sale.
Ammon was also suing the board of directors of 1125 Fifth Avenue, an upscale co-op building overlooking Central Park, for $8.5 million. The investment banker claimed that the board–which includes actor Kevin Kline–had failed to meet with a buyer who’d made an offer earlier in the year on his 5,000-square-foot apartment on the tenth floor.
For several months before his death, two former members of his personal staff were demanding he pay them at least $2 million in cash or securities and give them a residential property–promises they said he’d made in December 1997 as inducements to remain in his employ. When Ammon did not pay up, Steve Guderian and Bruce Riedner, domestic aides who had worked for the Ammons for a decade, sued him for $7.6 million, filing the lawsuit just a few days before his death.
By far, Ammon’s most contentious court case was the divorce and custody battle with his 45-year-old wife. Since the pair had separated in the summer of 2000, he said he had been paying about $105,000 a month to support her and their children, Alexa and Gregory–though she claims he was so far behind in payments for her accommodations that she risked being evicted at one point. Those support payments included as much as $45,000 a month for Generosa to live in the “Presidential Suite” of the tony Stanhope Hotel with their children and her private staff while her townhouse was being renovated . Sources say her new boyfriend, a handsome 36-year-old contractor who worked on the Ammons’ properties, was also a frequent visitor.
And Generosa had asked for an additional $153,000 a month in tax-free “spending money,” and at least $4 million in lump-sum payments–requests Ammon dismissed as “truly staggering amounts of money, unrelated to any realistic need.” His lawyer, Adria S. Hillman, would not comment on details of the divorce. But sources close to the proceedings say the pair were within days of an agreement when Ammon was killed.
Donald Wall, the court-appointed guardian for the couple’s adopted children during the divorce proceedings, insists that “reports of how she hated him and he hated her are greatly exaggerated. They’d made peace with each other [when he died].”
In fact, newspaper reports have said that Ammon’s will, despite the divorce proceedings, leaves his wife most or all of his estate. Ammon’s estate lawyer, Jay Waxenberg, would not comment on the case. But Generosa’s lawyer, Ed Meyer, says his client has been struggling financially since Ammon’s death and is not making money from her property restoration firm, Middlefield LLC. He says he still awaits a copy of Ammon’s will, despite repeated requests to Waxenberg.
Investigators have expressed interest in speaking with Generosa’s boyfriend, Daniel Pelosi, about the security system he helped install at the East Hampton home where Ammon was murdered. But Meyer says Pelosi, to whom he is also providing legal assistance, “would be happy to cooperate in that.” Friends say Generosa’s relationship with Pelosi was no secret to Ammon, and that he not only knew about Pelosi but got along well with him-so well, in fact, that the financier had bought tickets to a Yankees game for both Generosa and their children and Pelosi and his children for a game the weekend he was killed.
Those close to the proceedings say Ammon was concerned about the effect the sometimes acrimonious divorce proceedings were having on his children and had taken pains to see them on a regular basis–even missing business meetings to take the children on a vacation. A former nanny, Maria McDonnell, says he made a point of calling his children twice a day when he was away on business. In court papers, she described him as “an exceptionally family-oriented person, and a warm, loving and involved father.”
Moore, the 24/7 chairman, remembers Ammon as an extremely intelligent, hard-driving businessman who valued his time with his children so much that he became angry when Moore interrupted the family dinner with a phone call one night. Still, when Ammon was in the office, Moore says he was strictly business. “Frankly, until he died, I never knew he was involved in the jazz center and these other socially-redeeming things.”
In addition to his board memberships on 24/7 and Lincoln Center, Ammon was a director for a number of non-profit organizations and companies, including Host Marriott Corp., Culligan Water Technologies and Samsonite Corp. A graduate of Bucknell University, Ammon remained active in his alma mater, making a $15 million gift five years ago as part of a highly successful fund-raising drive. He was a general partner at the investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. before leaving to found Chancery Lane Capital. He was also serving as nonexecutive chairman of the print-labels company, Moore Corporation, when he died.
“The amazing thing about Ted Ammon was, even though he was very successful in the competitive world of business, he managed to face each day with the enthusiasm of a little leaguer on game day,” says trumpeter Wynton Marsalis, a close friend.
Wall says the divorce and Ammon’s death have been especially hard on the children, who are living with their mother in Manhattan. Generosa has remained reclusive since the death, and did not attend the memorial service in late October, on the request of Ammon’s sister. Instead, she and her children held a private memorial service that morning. “She feels whipped by all the events,” says Meyer. “She’s just trying to help the children through some extremely difficult circumstances–that’s foremost on her mind now.”
