The grief-stricken family of a Wall Street executive was stunned after his death to find that the cemetery plot he had bought for himself 29 years ago was occupied.
Richard Schultz’s widow and children were told that his plot at a Long Island cemetery had accidentally been sold by their synagogue to someone else.
“It was a weird, surreal experience to have him die, and this just made everything stranger,” said Schultz’s daughter Cynthia Hornig.
Now, her mother, widow Judith Schultz, is seeking $25,000 from the synagogue. She filed suit in Suffolk State Supreme Court on Friday.
Schultz, the founder, president and CEO of Triad Securities, had the foresight to buy four adjoining plots in 1983 for $1,800 from the Dix Hills Jewish Center, which had deeds to the plots located at the New Montefiore Cemetery.
He buried his mother in one plot after her death in 1994 and his father in another in 2006 — and thought the two remaining plots would be kept vacant for him and his wife.
But when Schultz, who is from Manhattan, died of cancer in January, family members found the spaces had been sold to other people.
“They said we had no plots,” Hornig said.
“My father planned to rest in all eternity next to his wife and his parents. Instead that space beside my grandparents was occupied by strangers.”
The synagogue offered another plot for Schultz, but it was a distance away and near the Southern State Parkway, she said.
“Not only did the synagogue not help, but they were downright rude — and my mother was a founding member of the synagogue!” Hornig said.
Schultz’s family eventually found another plot in the same cemetery, next to Judith Schultz’s parents.