EATERY HEIR WAR
Ponte restaurant clan’s R.E. battle
The hotblooded Staten Island family that once ran the famed Ponte’s restaurant in Manhattan has been fractured by battles over a real-estate fortune — and even whose name gets to go on a headstone.
The once-sleepy portfolio of roughly 30 Tribeca properties owned by Joseph Ponte and his brothers has skyrocketed in value — and selling just one, the shuttered eatery’s building on Desbrosses Street, fetched a tidy $115 million in 2015.
Ponte’s, known for its “angry lobster,” was frequented by celebs like Yankees manager Joe Torre and comic Jackie Mason.
When Joseph’s daughter Marguerite Colazzo died unexpectedly in 2013 at the age of 47, it set up a bitter showdown between the surviving Pontes and Marguerite’s husband, Tonino Colazzo, and two kids, who claim they’re being shut out of the family fortune.
And when Vincent Ponte, Marguerite’s brother, found out Tonino Colazzo had begun dating again, he promptly had the Colazzo name on Marguerite’s then-temporary headstone removed, court papers say. He was able to do this by allegedly lying to the cemetery that the couple had divorced. Tonino was able to change it back, the husband says in the legal filing.
While other members of the Ponte clan raked in $10,000 a month in profits from the family’s ventures, including real estate and several recycling companies, Marguerite’s husband and kids were told funds had dried up, they allege in court papers.
The family also tried to dupe Tonino, his daughter Danielle and son Nicholas into taking a cheap, $2.5 million buyout of Marguerite’s share of the Ponte fortune, which is worth “hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit filed in May by Tonino and his children against members of the family.
When Tonino Colazzo refused the paltry buyout offer, other members of the Ponte clan allegedly tried to oust him as executor of Marguerite’s affairs.
The Pontes, including Marguerite’s brother and cousin, both named Vincent, allegedly enlisted a Staten Island law firm to keep family trusts intended to benefit Danielle and Nicholas secret from them, Danielle Colazzo claims in a separate lawsuit against legal firm Hall & Hall filed in October in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The family repeatedly refused to share financial information with Tonino Colazzo and his kids, who are seeking $6 million in damages in the May lawsuit.
A lawyer for the Pontes, who are seeking to dismiss the suit, called the filing “meritless.” Hall & Hall did not respond to a message.