Convicted Manhattan pharma millionaire dies after US Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor denies bail

A Manhattan pharma millionaire convicted of killing her 8-year-old autistic son was found dead in a Brooklyn apartment just hours after a U.S. Supreme Court justice issued an order that would have sent her back to prison.

Gigi Jordan, 62, was found dead about 12:30 a.m. Friday in an apartment on MacDonough St. in Stuyvesant Heights, law enforcement sources and Jordan’s lawyer, Norman Siegel, confirmed.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an order on Thursday that would have required Jordan to return to prison while the justices considered her case.

The cause of Jordan’s death was unclear, though a law enforcement source said a note was found at the scene. Siegel said the Medical Examiner’s office plans an autopsy.

“It’s unbelievably sad. Gigi Jordan had a lot to offer society,” Siegel said. “In the end, she did not have her opportunity to contribute to society.”

Siegel said he noticed Jordan had called him around 7:30 p.m. Thursday, so he called back.

“She said, ‘Did you call me?’ I said ‘Oh it must’ve been a butt call.’ So we kind of laughed.

“She sounded in good spirits. I said, ‘I’ll talk to you soon.’”

On Friday morning, Siegel said he got a call from someone in Jordan’s house “saying they called 911 and the cops were there. So it was jarring and sad.”

Jordan’s appeal was based on an incident at her trial during which the courtroom was closed for about 15 minutes to hear arguments about email and a web posting “that accused the court of undermining the fairness of the trial,” Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office argued in papers before the Supreme Court.

The transcript of that hearing was ultimately released, and the jury was instructed not to read or listen or observe any media coverage of the trial, Bragg’s motion noted.

Except for that jury instruction, Bragg said, the closed proceeding “did not otherwise affect any substantive matter before the jury.”

Lower courts ruled that the closed proceeding did not violate Jordan’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, Bragg noted. But a Manhattan federal judge in 2020 granted bail in Jordan’s case, allowing her to be free while she pursued appeals.

Sotomayor in an order on Dec. 20 continued Jordan’s bail while the Supreme Court weighed the case.

But after Bragg’s papers were filed, Sotomayor on Thursday reversed herself, and issued the order that was expected to send Jordan back to prison.

Jordan was convicted in 2014 of manslaughter for killing her son, Jude Mirra, in a room at the Peninsula Hotel in Manhattan.

Prosecutors said Jordan fed her son a deadly cocktail of painkillers, tranquilizers and sleeping pills mixed with alcohol and orange juice.

While Jude lay dying that night in 2010 in the $2,300-a-night suite, prosecutors said, Jordan was on her laptop computer pulling $125,000 from his trust fund.

Part of her defense was that it was supposed to be a murder suicide.

Jordan was sentenced to 18 years in prison. “She had all the money in the world to help Jude but she wound up taking his life,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon said when he imposed the sentence.