Jaime Peters, Manhasset native and son of Roslyn Estates mayor-elect, dies at 37

Max Zahn
Jaime Peters, who died last Monday at age 37.

Jaime Peters, the son of Roslyn Estates Mayor-elect Paul Peters and a graduate of Manhasset High School, died on April 3. He was 37.

Paul Peters found his son dead last Monday morning, just a day before he was set to lead his first meeting as mayor. The cause of death is unknown.

“He was such a good soul,” Paul Peters said of his son. “Family was so important to him, as it is to most Italians. But it was really important to him.”

Jaime Peters was born in Manhasset, where he grew up attending Our Lady of Grace Montessori school, Munsey Park Elementary School and Manhasset Secondary School.

“In those days I was teaching math as a sub at Manhasset High School,” Paul Peters said. “Whenever I would have Jaime in class he would always bust my chops and make me laugh. He was a good-natured kid.”

After graduating from Manhasset High School in 1998, Jaime Peters earned a bachelor’s degree in administration from Mount Ida College in Newton, Massachusetts, Peters said.

“He spent most of his free time at Boston College,” Paul Peters said. “There were so many kids from Manhasset, including his longest standing friend, Melissa Melvin.”

Jaime Peters and Melvin met in Montessori school when they were 3 or 4 years old, Paul Peters said.

After graduating from college, Jaime Peters worked in junior positions as a financial adviser at Paine Webber and Wells Fargo.

He took up boxing and eventually participated in Golden Gloves, an amateur boxing tournament.

Dissatisfied with work and needing a change of scenery, Jaime Peters moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, where he purchased a franchise store of the frozen yogurt chain Red Mango, Paul Peters said.

The store “lasted a couple years” but “it was the wrong location and didn’t survive,” Paul Peters said.

While in West Palm Beach, Jaime Peters taught boxing to local foster children with a nonprofit organization called Friends of Foster Children.

“He would build their self-esteem and confidence,” Paul Peters said. “Whatever money he had, he would spend on them.”

He took a position as an office manager at NEST multifacility management, a company that connects business chains with a nationwide network of maintenance contractors.

Two years ago, Jaime Peters began experiencing chest and arm pain, Paul Peters said.

When local doctors could not determine the cause of the symptoms, Jaime Peters returned to Manhasset.

“We started taking him to the finest doctors we could find in Manhattan,” Paul Peters said. “He’d seen a bunch of them and never really identified what was wrong.”

Doctors later diagnosed celiac disease and an ulcer, and treatment for them helped alleviate some, but not all, of the symptoms.

“At times he couldn’t really function, he was in such pain,” Paul Peters said.

Jaime Peters nevertheless continued to teach boxing to children at the Manhasset-based after-school program Adventures in Learning. 

Paul Peters said doctors “never found what was wrong with” Jaime Peters all the way up to his death in the early morning at a Manhasset home in which his father formerly resided.

In addition to his father, Jaime Peters is survived by his mother, Linda Okun, his brother, Adam Peters, and his stepmother, Clare Fleming Peters. 

The funeral service will be held at Christ Church, in Manhasset, on Wednesday.

The family would like those seeking to commemorate Jaime Peters to make a donation in his name to Friends of Foster Children or Adventures in Learning.

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