New York lawyer buys $5.5m Cape Cod mansion on crumbling cliff edge, tries to get out of mortgage by saying he was in ‘manic psychosis’ at time of purchase

There are a huge number of dos and don’ts when it comes to buying a property, but right at the top of the list has to be to avoid spending millions of dollars on a Cape Cod mansion teetering on the edge of a rapidly crumbling cliff.

And yet this is exactly what retired New York lawyer John G. Bonomi Jr (66) did in 2021. Realtor.com reports that he paid the asking price of $5.5 million for the 5,817-square-foot mansion, which was situated between Cape Cod Bay and Wellfleet Harbor and boasted five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, and stunning views.

Unfortunately, it also sat on the edge of a bluff eroding at a rate of 3.8 to 5.6 feet per year, meaning the property was doomed.

“No rational person…would have considered purchasing the property”

Despite having been built relatively recently in 2010, the entire mansion has since been demolished to prevent the inevitable collapse, leaving Bonomi Jr on the hook for the mortgage. As per the report, he still owes JPMorgan Chase $3,850,000, but is now suing to void the payment on the grounds that he was in a “manic phase” when he bought it.

The lawsuit states that Bonomi Jr has been diagnosed with Bipolar I Disorder and that “no rational person…would have considered purchasing the Property, and certainly not at the full asking price.” His suit continues:

“Plaintiff was acting under an uncontrollable manic psychosis at the time he entered into the Mortgage and Note. It is a recognized diagnostic fact that a symptom of bipolar disorder is irrational risk-taking and impulsive behavior, including reckless spending.”

The suit also alleges that the bank should have been aware he wasn’t thinking clearly, saying they were “aware, or willfully avoided acknowledging, that Plaintiff was not at that time competent to enter into the Mortgage and Note” and that they took “unconscionable advantage of his condition”

A defense of bipolar was also attempted by Nathaniel Radimak, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison after a brutal road rage attack in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 2025.

In comments to the Boston Globe, Ethan Leib, a professor of law at Fordham Law School, said Bonomi Jr faces an uphill battle, pointing out that it’s difficult to prove that JPMorgan knew that Bonomi was in a manic phase.

Leib also identified elements of the suit that don’t add up, pointing out a passage that read, “from November, 2021, until September, 2024, Plaintiff paid Chase $21,053.05 per month. The Plaintiff then ceased making any mortgage or tax payments, as it was becoming clear the home likely was not going to be salvageable.”

Leib said, “The idea that he stopped paying — that’s a rational person doing calculations … Courts in New York care if people trying to rescind their agreements have lucid phases where they recognize the bindingness of their contracts after they form, even if they form under conditions of a mental defect.”

Bonomi still owns the Cape Cod Bay land on which his mansion once stood, which has been valued at $385,000. However, the Boston Globe reports that it’s currently primarily occupied by seals. They quote a “longtime summer resident” as saying that the seals’ cries almost sound like laughter: “It was as if the seals had been watching this human folly.”

JPMorgan denied the allegations in its May court response and initially moved to dismiss the suit. Their filing states, “Chase denies the allegations contained therein and leaves Plaintiff to his proofs” and a JPMorgan spokesman, Justin Page, explicitly told the Boston Globe that the bank had no comment.

In other Massachusetts news, doctors used Diet Coke to help treat a rare stomach condition that developed while a 63-year-old woman was taking semaglutide.