New topic
Printable
Titi Branch had it all — a multimillion-dollar hair-care empire she built up from a humble Brooklyn salon, a loving sister who was her business partner and confidante, and a boyfriend with whom she dreamed of starting a family.
Yet three weeks before Christmas, she fell into a depression so deep, she would not escape it. The beautiful entrepreneur hanged herself in her Midtown apartment on Dec. 4, authorities say.
What led her to such a dark place, and who might profit from her tragic death, are questions now at the center of a court battle between the two people closest to her: sister Miko Branch, with whom she launched “Miss Jessie’s” hair products, named after their grandmother, and Anthony Spadafora, the Pennsylvania man she loved. Each blames the other for the Queens native’s downward spiral.
Titi, 45, was under Spadafora’s Svengali-like spell, Miko claims in Manhattan Supreme Court papers, saying he isolated her from her family, manipulated her and treated her like a human ATM.
Titi even changed the beneficiary of her $2 million in life insurance policies from her sister to Spadafora — because of his “undue influence,” Miko claims.
“My sister’s death has been a devastating blow,” she told The Post. “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.”
Spadafora “wielded exceptional control over [her] while fully aware that her mental health was severely compromised,” the sister claims, referring to Titi’s “disabling” depression.
In just two years Spadafora, 43, managed to “extract” hundreds of thousands of dollars from Titi to launch his own beard-care business, Maestro’s Classics; $420,000 to buy and renovate a Pennsylvania house; and a $135,000 interest-free loan.
“In exchange, [she] received nothing,” Miko charged.
Report post to moderator
