Frank Mandelbaum is the founder of Intelli-Check, an identification verification company, and he passed away back in 2007 at 73. In Frank’s will, it is written that none of his grandchildren can receive inheritance from his if his son Robert “not be married to the child’s mother within six months of the child’s birth.”
Frank’s son Robert works as a Manhattan Criminal Court judge and is gay, which makes the stipulation in Frank’s will very interesting. Robert married Jonathan O’Donnell back in August of 2011 following the passing of the Marriage Equality Act in New York. The couple married not long after having a child using a surrogate mother. The child’s name is Cooper. Robert believes that Cooper deserves a portion of the $180,000 trust set aside for the three grandchildren of Frank. In court, Robert and O’Donnell are trying to prove that the will from Frank discriminates against them and violates state law.
“Requiring a gay man to marry a woman … to ensure his child’s bequest is tantamount to expecting him either to live in celibacy, or to engage in extramarital activity with another man, and is therefore contrary to public policy,” the couple’s attorney, Anne Bederka, wrote in court papers. “There is no doubt that what [Frank Mandelbaum] has sought to do is induce Robert to marry a woman.”