Lawyer blinds ex-mistress, marries her, gets swindled? [boomer relationship drama]

This is a crazy story with a lot of twists and turns that starts in New York in the late 1950s

Our story starts with a lawyer named Burt Pugach becoming infatuated with a girl named Linda Riss. He takes her on dates, buys her fancy gifts , and gives her rides to work every morning. And this courtship works, and Linda and Burt start dating.

All goes well for about a year, until Burt drops news no gf wants to hear -- Burt is already married, and has a kid. Linda is pissed, but Burt tells her he's in the process of getting a divorce. Linda still is not happy. But Burt doesn't give up, and shows up at her house with divorce papers in hand to show he's serious. The problem? The divorce papers are FAKE.

Understandably, this is the last straw for Linda. It's bad enough to have a secret wife, but fake divorce papers? She breaks it off, and soon starts dating a new man, Larry Schwartz. After just a few months of courtship, they get engaged. Burt is not giving up, he sends letters and flowers and gifts and asks her friends to pass along messages. When that doesn't work he starts threatening her, throwing rocks at her window, tells her he'll have people kill her. As you might expect, this doesn't work either.

Furious at Linda, Burt hires 3 guys to go to Linda's house, ring her doorbell, and throw lye in her face. She's rushed to the hospital and spends 3 months there receiving surgeries and other medical care for the caustic burns caused by the lye. Ultimately, she is left totally blind in one eye and partially blind in the other eye.

Even worse, shortly after this, Larry and Linda call off their engagement, either because they fear Burt or because Larry doesn't want to deal with a blind wife. A few months later, the police track down Burt's hitmen, who immediately rat out Burt. Burt gets sentenced to 15 years in jail.

This is where a lot of these stories would end. But Burt is still madly in love with Linda and starts writing her love letters from prison, speaking fondly to her. And Linda, she's broke, living alone in Manhattan, she's lonely, so she starts writing him back and they become pen pals. And when Burt finds out about her financial struggles, he starts sending her money he's been getting from doing paralegal work in jail. This arrangement continues for 14 years, and eventually Burt gets out. And when he gets out, they start dating again!

Burt is kind of a celebrity for his criminal act and gets invited onto TV to do an interview, where he pulls out a ring, turns to the camera, and proposes to Linda on TV. And she says yes, and they get married just 8 months after Burt gets out of prison. They co-write a book cashing in on the drama called "A Very Different Love Story"

At some point over the next 20 years, Burt starts cheating on Linda with multiple women. In 1997 point one of his mistresses comes forward and claims that Burt has started harassing her and threatening her with violence, just like what happened with Linda. Unlike Linda, this mistress takes Burt to court. And poor Linda, she appears as a character witness in the trial for Burt! And Burt beats most of the charges.

Linda dies in 2013 of heart failure at 75. But the drama still isn't over! Burt must have felt some remorse for what he did for Linda, because he wrote his will to leave most of his $15 million inheritance to a foundation for the visually impaired he set up in her honor, with some longtime friends also getting some. But when Burt died in 2020, his updated will left most of his money to his caretaker Shamin Frawley, and nothing for the foundation. Shamin is accused of coercing him into changing his will after he had a stroke, and withholding food and medicine until he died. But that's still working its way through the court system.