Major twist in battle for late Chicago recluse's $11 million fortune as 119 distant relatives scattered around the world were set to receive $100,000 payouts from the largest unclaimed estate in US history

A Chicago judge has shot down an attempt to void a will that would see $11miilion left to an inactive day care company.

Cook County Judge Daniel O. Tiernan made the decision Thursday, after hearing testimony from two men who say they witnessed the late Joseph Stancak sign the will the year before he passed away at age 87 in 2016.

Mansoor Afzal and Asad Mahmood said they saw Stancak, a longtime recluse who lived in a modest five-bedroom in Gage Park, sign the will at a New York real estate office in 2015.

Tiernan, in turn, approved the will be allowed into evidence in December, citing how state law required him to do so. The law requires jurists to approve a will if witnesses testified they were present, and in possession of a clear state of mind.

The judge, however, disclaimed the day's proceedings were merely paving the way for an inevitable legal battle between Stancak's 119 still-alive relatives, who laid claim to the fortune the man amassed over his life to be split between them.

'This is designed to be a limited hearing,' the judge said as those relatives had claimed no will was penned at the time of Stancak's death.

'It does not preclude a more formal will contest later on.'

The ruling served as the latest installment in the now nearly eight-year saga surrounding Stancak's fortune, discovered by state officials after senior's death in December 2016.

Stancak, an unseemly man who sometimes walked down his street with his hands clasped behind his back, had $21,000 in two Bank of America checking accounts, but had a hive of assets in mutual funds or individual securities.

Altogether, they amounted to more than $11million - making the fortune the largest unclaimed estate in U.S. history, due to an absence of an obvious will.

As the treasurer’s office received reports of these accounts, staff frantically worked to address the riches of historic proportions, successfully locating more than 100 of the man's distant relatives - including one woman who live less than five miles due west of Stancak’s house, but had no idea he existed.

Each were in line for $100,000 payouts until the will was presented in court this past year, paving the way for a legal fight of epic proportions.

It came in the form of petition filed in June 2023 asking Tiernan to accept a newly turned-up will - one that left his entire estate to a New York company, Smart Kids Child Care Inc, and the company’s president, Mahmood.

On Thursday Mahmood detailed his ties to the man in question, claiming he knew him through the daycare's original founder's son, Afzal.

Afzal testified that his father knew Stancak from when his father lived in Chicago in the late '80s and '90s, when they both worked as electricians.

He said his father died the same year as Stancak, and that he only learned of Stancak’s death one week ago from Mahmood.

Mahmood told the judge how he allegedly witnessed Stancak sign the will only discovered late last year in his home while cleaning for a move, while claiming his daycare company is inactive and has never had a physical location.

Afzal said Stancak sometimes visited Afzal’s father in New York after he moved there in 2002, after which he co-founded the daycare company.

In 2015, he invited Afzal to witness the signing of his alleged will, Afzal claimed Thursday.

'Children meant something to him,' Mahmood added.

Tiernan went on to approve the will to be entered into evidence, as the lawyer representing many of the heirs who were in line for the plum payouts accused Mahmood of forging the will.

In a petition filed this month, the jurist, Ashley Coppola, made that argument, while  citing how Stancak was in failing health in the years before he died.

This, she said, would make it highly unlikely he was planning to move cross country as the pair claimed.

Gregory Markwell, the administrator of Stancak’s estate and lawyer representing Mahmood, said he would reply to the petition by the next court hearing, slated for the first week of August.

The son of Polish immigrants, Stancak was born in Chicago in 1929. His parents moved there after living in New Jersey for two decades.

He had six siblings: Mary, Paul, Anna, John, Helen and Frances. Only Anna and John married, but none of the siblings ever had children.

Stancak's neighbors in the Chicago suburbs told CBS that the elderly man was quiet and frugal, often seeing him undertake home repairs by himself.

He lived on South Troy Street at a modest, $325,500 home, which is listed as a 5 bedroom, two bath, single-family home on Redfin.

The only evidence that Stancak had any kind of wealth was his boat, named 'Easy,' officials said. Public records show Stancak renewed his boating license annually for the vessel before turning 80.

When he died in 2016, first responders found him wearing a jacket in the home’s empty bathtub with heat and electricity turned off.

Relatives were found across the US and Europe, and after taxes, on average would receive around $60,000.