Allan Ash, 95, has decided to sue his grandson for not repaying a loan of $950,000 that he gave him when he thought he would not live to spend the money. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. Ash said that there was just one condition when he loaned Geoffrey Richards the money earlier in 2012. Ash said that if he happened to recover from heart problems and needed the money back his grandson would give it to him.
Court documents show that Ash recovered and asked for $200,000 of the money back but his grandson refused to give him the money. Now, Ash is suing his grandson for every single cent he let him borrow. “He is a scoundrel. He loves money,” Ash said, according to The New York Post. “He is the greatest disappointment in my life.”
The lawsuit says, “Over the decades, Mr. Ash’s professional success enabled him to provide material comforts and advantages for his family . . . far beyond anything he could have imagined growing up in The Bronx.”
Court documents show that Ash paid for boarding school, college and law school for his grandson. Ash also paid for Richards to go on vacation in Amsterdam, Italy, Israel, Greece and Sweden. The lawsuit also said that Ash “continued to try and make life easier” for Richards after he graduated by giving him $600,000 over the previous 14 years. The money helped Richards become the success he is today, working as a managing director at a global investment firm, where he makes over $1 million each year.
Ash hoped Richards would be the grandson who would manage his affairs upon death, which he thought was close because of water in his lungs and his heart problems. He gave Richards the $950,000 in the hopes that some of it would be used to pay for Ash’s funeral services.
“I said to him, ‘If I need the money, will you give it back to me?’ He said ‘yes.’ I have a witness,” Ash said. Ash said, “He said, ‘I never promised to give it back to you.’ ” Ash is bound to a wheelchair and is legally blind. He said he was ‘astonished’ and could not believe what Richards was saying. “Lightning struck my heart,” he said. “I was enraged, betrayed.”
“In the twilight of his life, Mr. Ash deserves to be treated with dignity, with respect, and for Mr. Richards to honor his commitments to Mr. Ash,” the lawsuit says. Richards would not comment for the story.