A new court filing designed to prevent the mistress of John R. Jakobson from testifying that he promised to leave Chicago PD actress Marina Squerciati some of his $100 million fortune, states the Wall Street mogul said she would get a 'big surprise' in his will.
Jakobson's son, the executor of his estate, is trying to stop Marie Squercati from speaking out by using the dead man's statute which protects the assets of the dead from claims of communication by the living to serve their interests.
Documents submitted to Manhattan Surrogate Court state vague terms the man who died aged 86 in April 2017 - and who reportedly had many affairs - allegedly used when stating plans for his will.
'I’m a gentleman and you may read into that only good,' he supposedly told his mistress in 1981 about their alleged daughter, now 37, who went on to star as Officer Kim Burgess on Chicago PD.
The mogul's widow, Joan Jakobson, has said she was unaware of his alleged love child who kept her family life a secret until she found out she was left out of the will.
Jakobson's three living children from his marriages - including Maggie Wheeler who played Janice on Friends - were included in the will.
But the family of the man, who at just 25 became one of the youngest people to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange in 1955, has refused to acknowledge her as one of his children.
But Marina was absent from his will.
According to the New York Post, Jakobson was a ladies man who had several affairs including one with former Miss America Bess Myerson.
Marina is the allegedly product of his affair with her mother Marie Squerciati, who wrote for TV in the 1970s and 80s and wrote for the Village Voice as well as the New York Times.
The affair allegedly lasted for a year and led to Marina's birth in August 1981.
Jakobson went on to marry his widow Joan Jakobson in 1983 with whom they shared a son named Nicholas.
From his first marriage with college sweetheart Barbara Jakobson he had three children, one of whom has passed away.
For her entire life Marina kept her father's identity a secret as he allegedly paid her mother $1,200 a month for more than 20 years - money used for Marina's nanny and for her rent-controlled apartment on the Upper West Side of New York City.
Jakobson also reportedly paid for Marina's schooling including the $175,000 tuition for Dalton School, then $131,000 for her education at Northwestern University, where she graduated from in 2003 with a bachelor's degree in theater.
He sent flowers and birthday gifts as well to Marina, and even invested in a play she appeared in.
Despite oral promises that he'd provide a 'substantial' trust for Marina in his will, it seems the Wall Street mogul neglected to do so.
When Marina got engaged, her mother allegedly asked Jakobson for a gift to which he allegedly reaffirmed that she 'would receive money under his will'.
His will however includes money for his first and second wives, three surviving children and stepdaughter, but not for Marina.
In her court filings she said that the price of her silence was 'extraordinary' and that she missed out on the opportunity to build a relationship with her alleged father and was denied 'any relationship whatsoever with her half-siblings'.
Despite these claims, Jakobson's widow Joan says she was unaware of the existence of her late husband's supposed love child.
'I'm not aware of it at all. She said she was John's daughter? This has all hit me, like, I don't know - a snowstorm,' she said to the Post.
The bombshell news led the Squerciatis to reach out to his estate last September to inquire whether Marina was named a beneficiary, according to court papers.
Nicholas Jakobson has 'devoted substantial time and ...considerable legal expense in analuzing the claim'.
Court filings by the estate say Marina's allegations have 'no basis in fact or law' and 'amounts to nothing more than an avaricious attempt to enforce an alleged, vague oral promise made to [her] mother, rather than to herself, and which resulted in no legally recognizable injury to her'.
Lawyers added that even if Marina could prove that Jakobson was her father, she lacks written evidence of his promise to leave her money in his will, saying she had 'ample opportunity as an adult' to have her father put his word in writing.
Marina was offered a $50,000 settlement by the Jakobson lawyers.
'She may have wished to avoid the opprobrium, which, although unfair and unjustified, is often cast upon nonmarital children,' lawyers said in court filings.
'As a successful actor, [she] may have been especially sensitive to this given her public persona and position in popular culture,' they added.
