Posner estate dispute further detailed

Son: Aides made heiress leave millions to dogs
He says video proves that Gail Posner was manipulated by her staff
Michael Inbar
June 21, 2010
Today.msnbc.msn.com
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/37820841/ns/today-today_people/
A high-stakes game of “fetch” for the multimillion-dollar estate of a Florida woman pits her only living child against, among others, a tiny Chihuahua named Conchita.

Heiress Gail Posner lavished the beloved pooch with a $3 million trust fund, along with the run of the $8.3 million Miami Beach mansion she inhabited. Her handlers fared even better; a group that includes her bodyguards, housekeepers and a personal trainer received a whopping total of $27 million, including $10 million to one bodyguard, $5 million to another, and another $5 million to a housekeeper charged with caring for Conchita and two other dogs.

Meanwhile, Posner’s son Bret Carr was left holding the doggie bag — he received only $1 million.

‘Delusional ego’

The bizarre will Posner left behind when she succumbed to cancer at age 67 in March is front and center in a lawsuit Carr filed against the estate, claiming his mother’s staff drugged and brainwashed her into signing over the biggest chunk of her holdings to them and her pets.

“They saw a frail woman who was vulnerable, who had a delusional ego; she thought she was a movie star,” Carr told Matt Lauer on TODAY Monday.

“Slowly, they got into her world. And they saw, ‘OK, it’s working and it’s growing,’ and they completely took advantage.”

Carr said that part of the proof his mother was under the influence of her handlers is evident from the fortune she left to Conchita and the other family pets, April Maria and Lucia. Housekeeper and personal assistant Queen Elizabeth Beckford is named as the dogs’ caregiver in the will, which specifies that she can live rent-free in the mansion and inherit $5 million if she continues to care for the dogs in the lavish style to which they have become accustomed.

He claims the staff instigated a campaign in which Posner presented Conchita as the “world’s most pampered dog,” with her own bedroom, bathroom, $15,000 Cartier necklace and weekly spa treatments. Carr also claims that Posner’s staff played into her delusions by telling her that Tom Cruise was coming to visit, and that she would be featured on the cover of national magazines.

Rocky relationship

The Posners were a family with a troubled history. Carr told Lauer his mother was an alcoholic who battled demons even as she sat in the lap of luxury by virtue of the estate left by her father, renowned corporate takeover artist Victor Posner.

Carr admitted his relationship with his mother was often problematic, but said they began to draw closer starting in 2000.

“My mother got sober for the first time in her life, and I took her to some AA meetings,” he said. “I was so proud of her. She told me. ‘The past is the past — I have a new lease on life. I love you and I want to make up for it.’ ”

Carr, a filmmaker, said his mother gave him $700,000 to finish a movie project and promised him “half of everything I get” upon her death. But in 2007, Carr said he began to find himself being shut out of his mother’s life because of interference from her staff.

Dramatic footage

As proof, he showed video he shot on his camera phone in 2008 that he says shows staff trying to run him out of the house while his mother says she wants him to stay. Carr can be heard on the video telling his mother, “They’re trying to control you,” and she responds, “Oh, I know.”

The footage also shows a bodyguard trying to take the camera phone away from Carr. “I screamed at [the bodyguard] and I got it back, luckily, and I ran out of the house,” Carr told Lauer. “They never let me back into the house; they locked the front gate after that.

“The second I left that day, they probably went into her ear and said, ‘See, he’s dangerous,’ ” Carr added.

Carr said he reunited with his mother on her deathbed — because she was now in the hospital, her staff could no longer keep him away from her. “I was grateful to simply be able to have her pass in my arms; it was the most spiritual experience of my life,” he told Lauer.

Posner’s daughter Tina passed away from a drug overdose in 1994, leaving Carr the only surviving offspring. And Carr’s attorney told Lauer that that is part of the case to have Posner’s will overturned.

“He’s the natural object of her affection,” attorney Alan Kluger said. “He’s her son. All relationships are rocky, all moms and sons have fights, but this is her son, and she loved him.”

In a prerecorded segment, Carr told NBC News: “The estate doesn’t belong to nine bodyguards, maids and a trainer who brainwashed my mother and tried to pickpocket her.”

VIDEO:  Heiress leaves millions to dogs, staff

VIDEO:  Millions go to the dogs

Family dogged by lawsuits over inheritance
Elaine Walker, McClatchy Newspapers
June 22, 2010
KansasCity.com
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/06/22/2034660/family-dogged-by-lawsuits-over.html
Miami Beach, Fla.’s newest socialite, Conchita, lives in an $8.3 million Sunset Island mansion, owns a Cartier diamond necklace and has a $3 million trust fund to support a lifestyle of designer duds, massages and pedicures.

What makes Conchita different from other Miami Beach socialites: She’s a Chihuahua. Conchita came into her wealth upon the March death of her owner socialite Gail Posner, the daughter of late corporate raider Victor Posner. Whether Conchita keeps her millions will be decided in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, where Gail Posner’s only living child, son Bret Carr, launched a legal battle this month over his mother’s estate. Carr claims his mother was manipulated into changing her will in 2008, leaving millions to her dogs and hired help.

“She never would have done that unless she was under extreme influence,” said Carr, 46, who has a video shot on his iPhone of a visit with his mother in late 2008 where she claimed her staff was trying to “kidnap and kill me.” In the video, Posner also asks her son to “get me out of here.”

The battle of Bret vs. Conchita and the hired help is just the latest window into the eccentricities of the Posner family. It was only eight years ago that Gail Posner and other family members were enmeshed in a similar court fight upon the death of Victor Posner.

Gail Posner’s will and trust gives her three dogs – Conchita, April Maria and Lucia – the right to live in the two-story Sunset Island mansion until they die.

She also left $27 million to her maids, bodyguards and personal trainer, plus the right for some of them to live rent free in the seven-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion in exchange for taking care of the dogs. Bret Carr got only $1 million. The remainder of the estate goes to charities.

Posner is certainly not the first to leave at least a portion of her fortune to her pets. The case has similarities to Leona Helmsley, who left a $12 million trust fund to her Maltese that was later reduced by a judge to $2 million.

Carr sees his mother’s fascination with her dogs as a sign of a deeply troubled woman, who was the victim of childhood incest and spent her life battling addictions to drugs and alcohol. Carr held his mother in his arms as she died at 67 of cancer, which had spread throughout her body.

“By protecting and pampering those dogs, she was really trying to pamper the little girl inside of her that was abused by Victor and never found safety in her own home,” said Carr, a Hollywood filmmaker, who divides his time between South Florida and California. “That frailty was leveraged by her staff. They exacerbated her paranoia and tendency to be in a delusional world.”

Court documents describe Gail Posner as a “deeply disturbed recluse with serious emotional and psychological problems stemming from her history of having been sexually abused by Victor, (her daughter) Tina’s suicide and her lifelong mental health imbalances and alcohol and substance abuse.”

Posner in 2007 hired a publicist for Conchita, who she billed as the world’s most spoiled dog. Gail Posner told The Miami Herald in 2007 about Conchita’s $12,000 summer wardrobe and a $15,000 Cartier necklace that the Chihuahua refused to wear after choking on it.

“Conchita is the only girl I know who doesn’t consider diamonds her best friend,” Posner told The Miami Herald.

Gail Posner lived her whole life under the manipulation and shadow of her father, whose hard-charging business personality extended into his personal life. But in death, Gail may have turned out more like her father than anyone could have imagined.

“She took on her father’s identity and got similar results,” Carr said.

Just like her father, there are allegations that as Gail’s health deteriorated she was “imprisoned” in her house and cut off from her family. She also changed her will shortly before her death, giving away much of her fortune to others and slighting her family. Carr alleges she wasn’t mentally capable of drafting that will and was “blackmailed” by her employees.

It will be up to the courts to decide if Gail Posner knew what she was doing when she signed that will and no one who stood to gain from the will exerted “undue influence” on her, said Carl Westman, a trusts and estate planning attorney with GrayRobinson in Naples, Fla.

Other attorneys say key evidence could be video of Gail Posner signing the new will or independent third-party witnesses.

“Especially when you’re talking about people with a lot of money and notoriety, who are going to disinherit family members, any attorney is going to take a lot of precautions to make sure the estate is not overturned,” said David Kron, a Fort Lauderdale trusts and estate planning attorney with Ruden McClosky.

Given the Posner family history, it’s even more important. When Victor Posner died in 2002, the fight focused on a will signed the year before that had made his business associate and former girlfriend Brenda Nestor the chief beneficiary and personal representative of Posner’s estate. That will cut out all but one of Posner’s children and left his grandchildren nothing.

The will faced challenges from Gail Posner, the grandchildren and Marvin Rosen, a New York lawyer who once handled Victor’s affairs. They argued Nestor had looted Posner’s company and kept away everyone who wasn’t loyal to her. But ultimately, Nestor and Gail Posner settled out of court to avoid a protracted legal battle.

In a sign of how much drama and controversy surrounds this family, Miami attorney Aaron Podhurst, who represented Gail Posner in the first will contest, declined to serve as personal representative of her estate as designated in the will.

Instead, that role is being filled by a bank: BNY Mellon.

Now, Carr is suing BNY Mellon and related firm Mellon Private Trust. He wants to know what happened to the $100 million he claims was in his mother’s trust after Victor Posner’s death.

Victor Posner in 1965 set up irrevocable trusts for Gail and her twin brother Steven, which would generate income for them during their entire lives. One of the early corporate raiders, Posner amassed a fortune by plundering companies and ultimately got himself in trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

His daughter was only allowed to touch the principal in her trust account for emergencies or if she needed money to “maintain her in the station of life she was accustomed.” The principal was supposed to remain in the trust for her children.

“The income from a $100 million trust is significant and certainly one would anticipate that any reasonable person would say that was enough money to maintain her current lifestyle,” said attorney Bruce Katzen, whose Miami firm Kluger Kaplan Silverman Katzen & Levine is representing Carr. “She could not act in a self-serving manner to take the money out of the trust to give it to herself.”

But that may have been what happened when the trust was closed in August 2008 with any remaining money given to Gail Posner and placed in a newly created trust. Carr’s suit accuses BNY of breaching its “fiduciary duties.”

“We believe we acted appropriately as trustee in relation to the 1965 trust,” said Susan Rivers, a spokeswoman for BNY Mellon Wealth Management. “We intend to vigorously defend ourselves.”

Miami attorney Steve Gillman, whose firm Shutts & Bowen represents BNY Mellon, echoed Rivers’ sentiments. Both declined to comment on any of the specific allegations.

Estate planning attorneys say BNY will have to prove to the court that the amounts it allowed Gail Posner to withdraw were necessary and why it was reasonable for the 1965 trust to be disbanded.

“They had a responsibility to protect not only the interests of Gail, but also Bret,” Kron said. “They clearly did not do that because there is nothing left for Bret.”

Carr, who had his own brush with the law in his 20s for counterfeiting traveler’s checks, said he was told all his life by his mother that he would get the house next door to her when she died, as well as her estate. The mother and son had an up and down relationship that was at its best when Gail was in the “sober phase” of her life, Carr said.

After Victor Posner’s death, Gail started to show signs of overcoming the addiction and mental problems that had plagued her entire life. During that time she grew closer to Carr. But the diagnosis of breast cancer in 2005 sent her into a tailspin, Carr said. Things only got worse as the cancer spread to her brain.

The suit charges that her employees took advantage of that, gradually preventing Carr from talking to his mother and keeping him from visiting her Miami Beach home.

The lawsuit also describes a campaign of injecting Posner with powerful pain killers and brainwashing her to believe that her family was out to kill her.

It was during that period, in 2008, when Posner executed a new will and trust agreement.

“I wanted to help my mother; I had no recourse,” Carr said. “I loved my mom very much, but she had very few sober phases in her life. I always saw her as a victim of Victor.”

(Miami Herald staff writer Robert Samuels contributed to this report.)