In December 45 year old Miss Jessie’s co-founder, Titi Branch, hanged herself in her Midtown apartment. According to her sister and fellow co-founder, Miko, it was Titi’s boyfriend Anthony Spadafora that drove her to her breaking point.
In court documents filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Miko Branch says Anthony Spadafora continued siphoned money from the successful business owner, treating her like a human ATM. Mike says Anthony had Titi under a spell, isolating her from family and manipulating her. He continuously siphoned money from her and even influenced her to change the beneficiary of her $2 million life-insurance policies from her sister Miko to Spadafora. “It was only after Titi’s death that we learned more about what she’d been going through and how her affairs were being managed,” says Miko to the NY Post.
Miko says her sister was severely depressed and Spadafora continued to take advantage of her knowing that her mental health was severely compromised. In just two years he managed to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from Titi to start up his beard-care business, $420,000 to buy and renovate a house in Pennsylvania and a $135,000 interest-free loan. What did Titi get in return? Nothing, according to Miko.
Titi also found out Spadafora had hit on her trainer last year but when she tried to leave him he threatened to release “compromising photographs” of her that he had taken. Within days of her death, he sent Titi’s grieving parents emails claiming he had a new will drafted by Titi giving him 50% of everything. He also refused to give them Titi’s laptop until they had given him her Cartier bracelet and once he DID give them Titi’s computer, it was scrubbed clean.
Spadafora tells a different story, saying that Titi’s falling out with her sister in 2013 caused her to change everything — her beneficiary, will, everything.
Read the rest on NY Post.
