How much can one woman take?
An 87-year-old Holocaust survivor recovering from colon cancer and a stroke claims her son siphoned nearly $2 million in cash and stocks from her and tried to steal two multi-million-dollar California properties from under her nose.
Retired Manhattan prosthodontist Irena Mausner built a portfolio of cash, stocks, investments, and nearly $5 million in real estate with her Chanel executive husband Jack Mausner, who died in 2014.
She trusted their son, Ian O. Mausner, 62, to manage her wealth but instead he engaged in “an array of theft, fraud, and deceit,” according to her Manhattan Federal Court lawsuit.
Ian’s conduct is “illegal and nothing short of outrageous,” Irena said in the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages from her son — a Wall Streeter who has authored a book on divorce and paints himself as a philanthropist.
Once confronted with the charges, the son allegedly lashed out at his mom, telling her she was the one who was “truly reprehensible and unforgivable.”
He even made a mean reference to her life’s struggles, saying, “you asked me why God has done this to you . . . and perhaps we now know why,” she claimed in the litigation.
The suit charges he forged her name on the deeds of a $2.2 million San Diego apartment and a $2.4 million Carlsbad mansion they jointly owned, and gave himself sole control to try to secretly sell them.
From 2018 to 2022, Ian Mausner allegedly shifted $1.7 million of his mom’s dough into a Robinhood investment account in his own name, while giving Irena “phony” documents showing the funds were in her control, the mother claimed in the legal filing.
He also allegedly sold shares of his mom’s stock in Colgate-Palmolive, pocketing $50,000; swiped $100,000 from her retirement account; ran up more than $13,000 in credit card charges for California Closets, vacation home rentals, and movies; and stole roughly $7,000 in payments from her long-term care insurance, according to court papers.
“His actions have become more troubling with the passage of time, including an array of theft, fraud, and deceit, combined with his confronting his elderly mother while she was in a medical rehabilitation facility and threatening his sister,” according to the lawsuit.
It’s not the first time Ian Mausner has been accused of wrongdoing: the one-time capital management and financial advisor ran afoul of the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2013 for an alleged cherry-picking scheme and was later required to disgorge $670,000, his mom claimed.
Irena Mausner, who was 3-years-old when World War II broke out, survived the Holocaust by being hidden in a convent in Warsaw, Poland, for several years, said her son, who denied the allegations and blamed a jealous sibling for the rift with his mom.
“It’s a very sad tale. It’s all not true,” he told The Post, adding his relationship with his mother deteriorated after she had a “very serious stroke,” and his sister allegedly convinced the older woman to give her power of attorney. “It’s my sister who is really driving all this. … I’ll fight this.”
