The murder of Ted Ammon

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52-year-old Ted Ammon seemed to have it all; he had a strong presence, standing at 6’4”, he was handsome, extremely smart, successful, wealthy & had a fantastic personality. Sadly, his life ended suddenly in a brutal way within his luxury vacation home that was nestled amongst the richest of the rich in East Hampton, a place where homes start at $6 million & go as high as $30 million. Some might think that fame & fortune can buy safety & security, but it didn’t stop someone from entering Ted’s home & brutalizing him.

Concern for Ted’s wellbeing began on Monday, October 22, 2001, after Mark Angelson, Ted’s business partner in their new boutique private equity firm, realized that Ted had missed their morning meetings. At the time, he wasn’t worried & it wasn’t until noon came & went & Ted was still a no-show, that he began to worry. 

When Mark spoke with Ted’s household help from his home in the city, his concern only grew when he was informed that Ted hadn’t made after-school arrangements for his 11-year-old twins, Alexa & Gregory. Ted may have been a forgetful person, but never when it came to his children.

Ted Ammon was an exceptionally wealthy, self-made man who owned five homes, six cars, but despite his wealth & success, his life was certainly not without turmoil. Beginning in the summer of 2000 Ted had begun the divorce process with his second wife, 45-year-old Generosa Rand. The couple set off down a bumpy, tumultuous road as Generosa was said to have embarked on a campaign of domestic revenge throughout their divorce process. 

Ted & Generosa first crossed paths eighteen years earlier in 1983 when Ted was apartment hunting & made an appointment to see a place on the far East Side of Manhattan, but never showed up. The next morning he got a phone call from the agent, Generosa Rand, who was none too happy with his absence & wasn’t afraid to voice her displeasure. As a way to apologize, Ted invited the woman, who was seven years his junior, out on a date & the rest was history. 

As they met up for their date, Generosa told Ted a little bit about herself; she was a rental agent by day & an artist & photographer in her free time. She was captivated by the handsome man, who at 33-years-old, was on the fast track to success. 

Ted grew up in a modest home in East Aurora, New York just outside of Buffalo with his parents & his sister, Sandi. After attending Bucknell University where he majored in economics, he went on to pass both the English & U.S. bar exams without ever attending a day of law school. 

After graduation, Ted joined Bank of America’s executive training program & there, he met a woman, Randee Day, a fellow trainee, who he hit it off with & the two were married in 1973. The couple soon relocated to London & after passing the bar exams in both New York & Great Britain, Ted became a solicitor at Norton Rose Fulbright. The couple remained in London until Randee’s career brought them back to New York, but they went on to divorce nine years into their marriage.

Ted left his legal profession behind & transitioned into investment banking, joining Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) at age 30, a then relatively small firm. As KKR continued to rise, Ted grew to partner status & was part of a $31 billion deal that was said to pay each partner millions in bonuses. 

It was just about this time that he started to hunt for a new apartment & crossed paths with Generosa, who eventually became his second wife. Generosa had been raised in Laguna Beach, California by a single mother who died of brain cancer when Generosa was only ten. After her mother’s death, she & her sister were moved to foster care. During this time, her sister was her protector from an abusive home & tragically, when Generosa was 17, her sister was killed by a hit-&-run driver. Grief stricken, she headed to New York alone in 1981 after graduating from the University of California & began to climb her way up the real estate ladder.

In February 1986, Ted & Generosa were married & lived in a townhouse between Fifth & Madison. Ted continued to rise in his career & was described as a powerhouse who went from deal to deal, someone who had 700 ideas at any given time, 697 which were ridiculous, 3 of which were brilliant. 

Meanwhile, Ted & Generosa were said to be the perfect balance; Ted’s easygoing nature complimented Generosa’s intensity. As the couple tried to unsuccessfully have children together, Generosa was at a doctor’s appointment when she noticed a photo of two babies. When she asked the doctor about them, he indicated that they were orphans from the Ukraine. Ted & Generosa eventually traveled to Ukraine in 1992 to adopt 2-year-old blond twins, a boy & a girl, Gregory & Alexa, who at the time, were very malnourished. In an instant, they went from having nothing to being surrounded by love & wealth.

As the family of four returned to New York, Ted was described as deliriously happy in fatherhood. That same year, the couple purchased an East Hampton six-bedroom, English-country-style manor vacation house at 59 Middle Lane for $2.7 million. The home had a sprawling front lawn & an English garden nestled along a street that was known for being one of the wealthiest sections of the Hamptons. As the house was renovated, Generosa was said to clash with one contractor after the next

1992 was also the year that Ted announced his departure from KKR as he moved onto the journey of starting his own firm. It wasn’t long before he purchased a company that produced advertisement inserts for newspapers which he named Big Flower Press. 

Within seven years Big Flower Press skyrocketed to success with nearly $2 billion in gross annual revenues. Ted’s company was eventually renamed Vertis Holdings, Inc. & in 1999 the company was acquired by a group of investors, including Ted, who had stepped down as CEO in April 1997 & as chairman in 2000 after he received a payout from Vertis. From here, he started Chancery Lane Capital in 2001, a private investment firm. This transition allowed him to manage things from afar while he enjoyed his tremendous wealth that gave him the freedom to travel & spend more time with his family.

Despite his immense financial successes, Ted’s personal life began crumbling right before his eyes. Bit by bit Ted & Generosa’s friends lost touch with the couple in what was described as being iced out by Generosa. Those that still remained indicated that tensions were growing within the Ammon’s marriage. During a parent-teacher conference while Ted was speaking with one of the mothers, Generosa marched over & demanded that the woman stop flirting with her husband. 

When Ted told his friends that they were moving to England to live full-time, they saw this as a last ditch effort to save their marriage. Many saw this as Generosa’s way to remove Ted from his face-paced work life in hopes they could enjoy their family together, but sadly, the move did little to help their situation. Ted agreed to the move, but often traveled back to New York in order to sell Big Flower. During this time he lived at the Lowell Hotel during the week & spent weekends at their manor home in Surrey, England.

The distance caused Generosa to become suspicious that Ted was having an affair so she hired a private investigator to follow her husband. She believed that he was seeing a gorgeous New York investment banker  that resembled Gwenth Paltrow who made millions & owned a house in the Hamptons. Generosa speculated that the woman had just had Ted’s baby, but there was no proof that this was the case.

When Generosa came back to New York in the summer of 2000 with the kids, she began the process of filing for divorce. Friends of the couple indicated that she cut anyone off who spoke with or spent any amount of time with Ted, something that greatly isolated her. Many described her as a woman who was constantly suspicious that someone was betraying or rejecting her & when she was upset, she was highly unpleasant to be around.

Generosa went through divorce attorneys, firing one after the other, demanding half of Ted’s fortune which she insisted was worth close to $300 million rather than the $100 million that Ted maintained to be his net worth. 

Generosa wanted $50,000 annually each for a chef, a bodyguard, a housekeeper, $100,000 for an assistant, $30,000 for a gardener & $60,000 for home maintenance to cover her life in New York (which equated to $340,000/year). She would also need an additional $100,000 annually to cover the maintenance for the manor home in Surrey as well as $180,000 a month in basic living expenses ($2.16 million/year) for a grand total of $2.6 million/year as well as half of the $300 million that she believed he possessed, including all of the family’s real estate that included four homes. 

In 2000 Generosa found a townhouse just east of Fifth Avenue that sources indicate Ted paid $9 million for & as well as a $1 million renovation budget which eventually skyrocketed to $3 million. While renovations began in September 2000, Generosa moved into the lavish Stanhope Hotel on Fifth Avenue where she stayed in a $1,500/night suite as well as occupying another large room for the nanny & her twins & at least two more rooms for the renovation crew. 

In the meantime, Ted moved into a 10th floor apartment on Fifth Avenue.

As townhouse renovation continued, Generosa’s relationship with the head of the crew with electrician, 38-year-old Daniel “Danny” Pelosi, continued to progress. Danny was a divorced father of three, a high school drop-out who had a long history of drug & alcohol abuse with multiple drunk driving charges. 

Their relationship began after Generosa found Danny asleep in his work truck since he didn’t want to make the drive back to his home in Long Island so she invited him to stay at the swanky hotel with her. According to Danny, he went from sleeping in his car to driving around in a limousine & sipping expensive wine overnight. He compared their situation to the princess & the pauper. 

In the meantime, the bills that were forwarded to Ted to support Generosa’s hotel life totaled about $70,000/month. 

While she became a fixture at the hotel, those that interacted with Generosa were able to witness her irate & abusive behavior toward hotel staff firsthand. Meanwhile, Pelosi often bragged about knowing people in the Mafia & many saw him as highly obnoxious.

Generosa was soon seeking sole custody of the twins & often failed to drop them off with Ted at their agreed upon time. There were times when she told him she was spending the weekend with the children & he would come to learn that she was away with Pelosi while the kids had been dropped off with the nanny. Some who knew Generosa said that she tried to poison the children’s view of their father, claiming he stole money, bugged their phones to spy on them & that he had Mob connections.

Ted’s lawyers were eventually able to prove that he was actually worth $100 million vs. the $300 million Generosa had been insisting he was worth. With this, she was set to receive $20-$25 million as well as her townhouse & money from other properties that would be sold. The judge rejected her request for full custody & ruled they would share custody of the twins with one week on, one week off. 

In the last weeks of Ted’s life, final papers were being drawn up, but had yet to be signed.

On October 17, 2001, Ted’s longtime house staff suddenly filed suit against him, claiming he owed them large sums of money despite the fact that for more than a decade, they had had no complaints. The two men were said to be close to Generosa & part of her entourage & were seeking more than $7.5 million. Ted’s friends indicated he’d seen the lawsuit as a joke that he simply laughed at.

Regardless of the turmoil around him, Ted was said to be happier than he’d been in a long time. He looked forward to finalizing the divorce, moving on with his life with a fresh start & spending one-on-one time with his children so they could heal together. He was known to be a generous man; in 1996, he gifted $15 million to his alma mater, Bucknell & became the chairman of Jazz At Lincoln Center. With his fresh start, he continued to focus on philanthropy & was in the works of helping to plan a temporary memorial at the World Trade Center for the Municipal Art Society.

So when Ted suddenly went quiet on Monday, October 22, 2001 & he was unreachable by cell, Mark Angelson worried that maybe Ted suffered a heart attack or some other medical emergency while he was up at his Hampton’s home over the weekend. 

Mark & Ted’s private driver hopped onto a corporate helicopter, flew out to the East Hampton Airport & arrived a little after 5 pm. They then took a cab to 59 Middle Lane & as soon as they pulled up, they saw Ted’s Porsche parked in the driveway.

As Mark & the driver entered the home, Ted’s three dogs, two golden retrievers & a chocolate lab, seemed hungry & confused. As they called out his name, they were met with only silence & as they made their way to his bedroom, they were shocked to find Ted’s nude body lying on the floor near his bed with his head bludgeoned. 

Bedding had been thrown over his body & blood stained his mattress. There were defensive wounds to Ted’s hands which suggested that during the attack, he’d likely been down on his knees with his hands over his head in an attempt to protect himself.

Mark immediately called the East Hampton Village Police, a call that was placed at 5:19 pm. Within three minutes, an officer arrived & quickly confirmed that no one else was in the house. It was also confirmed that Ted’s security system, which included nine cameras, had been disabled.

As the Suffolk County Homicide unit arrived, they combed through the house & quickly determined that robbery had not been the motive for Ted’s murder. The house had not been ransacked, nothing seemed out of place & a money clip sat in plain sight on the kitchen counter with $1,000. 

Blood was downstairs, came upstairs & was even inside the shower where the killer likely washed off the blood that coated their body. 

The medical examiner determined that Ted died from blunt-force trauma from 30 blows to the head. A panic button that would have set off an alarm sat in the top drawer of the dresser at his bedside, but it was clear that he had been unable to reach it in the midst of his attack.

Ted’s time of death was unclear, but his body temperature had fallen to the ambient temperature of his bedroom, suggesting that he could have died two days earlier on Saturday night. A houseguest of an immediate neighbor thought they saw Ted painting a watercolor by the pond on Sunday & also heard the sound of several cars crunching over the gravel of Ted’s driveway.

Ted’s murder became big news & by Tuesday the police blocked off both ends of the street to keep reporters at bay in a place that was surrounded by wealth where murders didn’t happen.

Daniel & Alexa were stunned when Ted’s sister, their Aunt Sandi, who lived in Alabama, traveled to New York to break the news about their father’s death. When they met up with their mom that day, Generosa told her 11-year-old twins that their father committed suicide, something they couldn’t believe. For a long time they wondered if their dad might still be alive & hiding out somewhere because of the divorce.

Police remained tight-lipped about potential suspects & evidence as rumors & theories swirled around. Knowing that Ted had been in the midst of a nasty divorce, attention was obviously placed on Generosa. Investigators learned that six months earlier, Danny had overseen the installation of the security system at the mansion where Ted was murdered. Little had Ted known, but Danny & Generosa could simply log into their laptops & unknowingly watch him from the many cameras that were mounted throughout the house. 

According to Danny, Generosa wanted the system installed so she could observe her husband from afar since she was convinced he had been removing items from the house. Because they had full access to the system, they would know when Ted was there alone, when they could strike & have him killed.

It wasn’t lost on investigators that the hard drive from the system which captured & recorded all the images from the camera had been removed. Even more concerning, it had been hidden in a remote area of the house that a stranger would have been unlikely to find. 

Danny maintained that he had nothing to do with Ted’s death & claimed he’d driven from Manhattan to Long Island on Saturday night in anticipation for a wedding that was being held on Sunday. On his way, he stopped by his sister’s house at 1:20 am, an hour away from East Hampton where Ted was murdered. He met up with a friend at 2 am & headed out for a drink. Barbara’s daughter, Kelly, recalls that her uncle came back sometime in the 3 o’clock hour & asked her where the blankets were. 

Generosa was said to have a tight alibi & hadn’t been anywhere near East Hampton that night.

After the autopsy was complete, Ted was cremated & a memorial service was held where more than 1,000 mourners attended. 

Ted’s will was dated August 22, 1995 & during a meeting on November 14, weeks after his murder, Generosa was set to inherit nearly his entire estate except for a gift of $675,000 to his children. Despite the fact that they were going through a divorce, Ted hadn’t had his will re-written & since the divorce papers hadn’t been signed, the entire estate would pass to her tax free at a total of $81.4 million. However, since his death was a result of a homicide, the money wouldn’t be transferred until the investigation was complete.

Three months after Ted’s murder, Generosa & Danny were married in January 2002 & they moved back to Danny’s hometown of Center Moriches so they could be closer to his three children. Only months after they were married, Generosa was diagnosed with advanced, terminal breast cancer at age 46. As her health rapidly deteriorated, as did her marriage to Pelosi. The stress of Generosa’s illness paired with being suspects in a murder case escalated Danny’s spending & drinking. 

By July 2003, after a year & a half of marriage, Generosa & the kids moved to 59 Middle Lane where Ted had been murdered & Danny was written out of her will. The Ammon children watched as their mom spent most of her days on the couch, barely moving or eating, dying of cancer at the very home their father had died in. One month later, Generosa was gone; she died at age 47 on August 22, 2003 when her son & daughter were 13. However, as part of a postnuptial agreement, Pelosi received a home & $2 million & he was left as the sole suspect of Ted’s murder. 

After Generosa’s death, the twins received the bulk of their father’s fortune & were split up, Alexa was living with their nanny, 57-year-old Kay Mayne in the East Hampton mansion while Gregory was sent to boarding school in New Hampshire.  

In March 2004, Danny was arrested for second-degree murder & held without bail at a time when he was expecting a new baby with his fiance, Jennifer Zolnowski.

The trial began in September 2004 & lasted eight weeks. It was based on circumstantial evidence; there was no physical evidence that linked Danny to the murder & no witnesses. His defense attorney argued that he had nothing to gain from Ted’s death since he had no rights to his wealth, however, at the time he was with Generosa & she would inherit nearly the money with Ted out of the picture. 

However, there were people who testified that Danny had confessed to murdering Ted, including his own father, who indicated that Danny contacted him hours after the murder asking how to dispose of something where no one could ever find it. The prosecution believes that it was the hard drive from Ted’s security system that he was needing to ditch which was recording 24/7 & would have captured images of the murderer entering & leaving the home. As Danny’s father left the courtroom, jurors watched as Danny snarled, I hate him & they were able to see a rageful side of the man. 

Danny’s ex-girlfriend testified that when he confessed to her about killing Ted, he elaborated that Ted had cried like a b**ch during the beating. When she asked why he killed Ted, he responded, because I have a monster in me.

Despite the advice of his attorneys, Danny took the stand & argued that it was Generosa who was responsible for Ted’s murder. She asked him to kill Ted, but he refused to agree. He claimed that Generoa’s alibi of being in her Manhattan apartment that night, had been a lie & that she’d left the apartment before he had. Danny believes that it was Generosa & two others who entered the mansion & killed Ted.

During the trial, the events that led to Ted’s brutal murder were pieced together. On Saturday night, October 20, 2001, Ted drove out to his East Hampton home to spend the weekend & that evening, he had dinner at The Farmhouse Restaurant, leaving at 9:30 pm. After, he went to the beach & made a phone call to his girlfriend at 9:44 pm & told her that he saw something that scared him so he was going back to the house.

A stun gun had been used to immobilize Ted before he was ultimately bludgeoned to death on the home’s second floor.

Scientist, Dr. Werner Spitz, testified for the defense that based on the contents of Ted’s stomach, he could not have lived more than four hours after eating dinner. He left the restaurant at 9:30 pm & Spitz insists that Ted was dead by 1 am.

During this time, cell phone records showed that Danny was driving from Manhattan to his sister’s house at 1 am, however, other medical experts brought in by the prosecution argued that Ted could have been alive much longer which would have given Pelosi time to drive to East Hampton.

After a weekend of deliberation, the jury came back with a guilty verdict on Monday, December 13, 2004. Members of the jury indicated that it was the hard drive that truly swayed them since it was in a hidden part of the house that the killer would not have known about. Despite the guilty verdict, some of the jurors weren’t convinced that Danny was alone at the time of Ted’s murder. His sentencing was held on January 25, 2005 & Daniel Pelosi was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

Around the time of Danny’s sentencing, Alexa spoke out about the man she & her brother had spent four years with & had come to love & trust as she said, I don’t know how Mr. Pelosi lives with himself after what he has done to our family. I hope he rots away in jail.

That same year in 2005, Ted’s sister Sandi Williams was awarded custody of Alexa & Gregory, two teens who had lost both of their parents within two years of each other.

One year later, Danny’s friend & former employee, Christopher Parrino, pleaded guilty to one count of hindering the prosecution & one count of criminal facilitation. During his sentencing hearing he testified that he drove with Danny to Ted’s home on the night of the murder. He said he saw Danny run from the home with blood on his clothing, saying he got into a fight with Ted & said, I think he’s dead. In March 2006, Parrino was sentenced to 6 months in jail. 

Gregory & Alexa lived a quiet life outside of the media’s attention until Greg decided to make a documentary about their lives & their parents, 59 Middle Lane. In 2011, ten years after their father’s murder, they traveled to their birthplace of Ukraine & learned that their birth mother had died from alcoholism at age 49 five years earlier. While they were there, they were able to meet their aunt as well as their half brother & sister, Yuri & Natalia in a tearful reunion & they learned that their mom had given birth to six other children.

During the documentary, they also returned to 59 Middle Lane where both their father & their mother died. They also scattered their father’s ashes in Central Park.

59 Middle Lane, the 7,000 square foot, six bedroom six & a half bath house ended up selling in 2017 for $8.35 million.

References:

1. Vanity Fair: Murder in East Hampton
2. CBS News: Murder in the Hamptons
3. CBS News: Part II: Murder in the Hamptons
4. CBS News: Part III: Murder in the Hamptons
5. Dan’s Papers: Daniel Pelosi? Convicted Hamptons murderer could be freed
6. YouTube: 59 Middle Lane
7. Curbed Hamptons: ‘59 Middle Lane’ Ammon house in East Hampton sells for over $8M
8. Daily News: Scene of his vile deed. Prosecution displays bloody evidence that did Danny in
9. YouTube: 48 Hours: Murder in the Hamptons
10. Medium: Murder in the Hamptons: The shocking true story of Ted Ammon’s death
11. ABC News: Daniel Pelosi murder case: Timeline of a deadly love triangle
12. Independent: The murder that shook the Hamptons: A picture-perfect family, a savage bludgeoning & a shocking twist