Ghouls bilk $15M: suit

Twisted Pugach tale

The estranged wife of a gay ex-cop romanced late millionaire lawyer Burt Pugach out of his $15 million estate with help from her husband and his NYPD son, according to a new lawsuit.

The complaint, filed last month in Queens, accuses Shamin Frawley, 52, of conspiring with husband William and son Nicholas to use “romantic and sexual leverage” to bilk the late lawyer of his fortune, the suit says.

Pugach was 93 when he died last year. “The perfidiousness of her greed cannot be overstated,” claims the lawsuit, filed by former friends and associates of Pugach. “Under the duress and undue influence she exerted over Burt Pugach, she eventually coerced him into making her and her family the sole beneficiaries of Mr. Pugach’s estate,” the suit said.

Pugach, described in the suit as “a New York City legend,” gained notoriety in 1959 when he attacked a young lover who spurned him with lye, blinding her. He spent 14 years in jail over the highprofile attack on the woman, Linda Riss.

However, the couple reunited and married when Pugach was released from prison in 1974 and they remained together until Riss died in 2013. Their story was the subject of the 2007 documentary “Crazy Love.”

According to the lawsuit, Pugach remained alone until meeting Shamin Frawley in 2016 and striking up a sexual relationship, the papers said. A year earlier, Frawley and her husband became estranged after he came out.

The lawsuit claims Shamin Frawley took Pugach into her home after his 2020 release from the hospital and sequestered him there.

They claim she even forged the lawyer’s signature when he became incapacitated after suffering several strokes. Shamin Frawley then starved her elderly lover to death, the suit claims.

But Jonathan Strauss, the attorney for the Frawleys, told The Post on Tuesday that Shamin loved Pugach. “There’s absolutely no shenanigans here,” Strauss said.