Melania Trump’s Diamond Merchant Dumping Mementoes of Troubled Adopted Son
Image by Getty Images
After his adopted son was accused of helping cover up a grisly murder, diamond merchant to the stars Jeffrey Rackover is washing his hands clean of James Rackover.
Jeffrey Rackover, who counts Melania Trump and Jennifer Lopez among his clients, was said to be throwing out James Rackover’s clothing and shredding his photos of the 21-year-old, reported DNAInfo Friday.
“Everything about the kid went bad,” an unnamed friend of Jeffrey Rackover’s told the news site. “He feels taken for a ride, emotionally and financially.” He added, “Jeffrey still cries every day, but he wants to be cleansed of it all, and done.”
James Rackover and Lawrence Dilione were arraigned this week on charges of concealing a body, hindering prosecution and evidence tampering, after police discovered the corpse of Joseph Communale, said to have been stabbed to death at a party in James Rackover’s Manhattan apartment, at the bottom of a shallow grave in New Jersey. Both pled not guilty to the charges.
Never married and childless, Jeffrey Rackover claimed that James Rackover (born James Beaudoin) was his long-lost son, the child of a woman he once had slept with.
“Jeffrey was always lamenting that he was getting older, and wouldn’t have a family,” another unnamed friend of the elder Rackover told DNAInfo in an earlier report. “He was always saying, ‘Who is going to take care of me when I am old?’… He thought, maybe, the kid was the answer.”
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
