Sumner Redstone's Lawyers Allege Manuela Herzer Lied and Kept Him From Women He Cared About
May 05 2016 - 9:27PM
Dow Jones News
By Keach Hagey and Joe Flint
Lawyers for Sumner Redstone have filed court documents laying
out why the media mogul evicted a female companion living at his
mansion in October, precipitating a legal battle that goes to trial
on Friday.
The documents, filed on Thursday in a Los Angeles court, claim
Mr. Redstone removed Manuela Herzer from his home because she had
lied to him and tried to block other women he cared about from
making contact with him.
Pierce O'Donnell, a lawyer for Ms. Herzer, on Thursday dismissed
the allegations.
Ms. Herzer filed a lawsuit last November claiming that Mr.
Redstone, the 92-year-old controlling shareholder of Viacom Inc.
and CBS Corp., lacked mental capacity when he made the decisions
affecting her. Mr. Redstone also removed her as his health-care
agent in the event he would become incapacitated and wrote her out
of his will.
Ms. Herzer is suing to be reinstated as Mr. Restone's health
care agent.
Meanwhile, her lawyers presented a counternarrative in separate
court documents Thursday. They claim the decision to remove Ms.
Herzer as health-care agent was "based almost exclusively on false
and/or misleading information provided to Redstone by vulgar and
morally corrupt nurses and other employees who carried a grudge
against Herzer and wanted her gone."
The case has been closely tracked in Hollywood and on Wall
Street. If Mr. Redstone is found by the court to have lacked mental
capacity, it could have major implications for his media empire,
which includes cable channels such as MTV and Comedy Central, CBS
and Paramount Pictures.
Mr. Redstone's attorneys said in their documents that Ms. Herzer
didn't challenge Mr. Redstone's mental capacity at any point before
the mid-October moment when she was evicted. They allege in the
documents that she spent more than $350,000 on his credit cards at
upscale stores such as Barneys and Bergdorf Goodman in the two
months before she was evicted.
That spending was on top of having received, along with Mr.
Redstone's ex-girlfriend Sydney Holland, a combined $150 million
from Mr. Redstone during the previous years, according to the
documents.
Ms. Holland was herself evicted from Mr. Redstone's mansion in
August after confessing to infidelity, and Ms. Herzer was made a
larger beneficiary in Mr. Redstone's will, according to the
documents filed on Thursday.
Mr. Redstone's lawyers also allege in the documents that Ms.
Herzer intercepted a letter from Ms. Holland in which she
apologized to him. Ms. Herzer then "typed up fake letters from Ms.
Holland that were designed to infuriate Mr. Redstone," the lawyers
allege in the documents.
The documents allege Ms. Herzer tried to keep Mr. Redstone from
seeing who his lawyers in the documents described as his "longtime
friend," Terry Holbrook, by instructing the nursing staff to tell
him that Ms. Holbrook wasn't available to see him, even when she
was.
Mr. Redstone's lawyers plan to call both Ms. Holbrook and Ms.
Holland to testify at the trial. They say both will verify Mr.
Redstone was mentally competent during their visits with him both
before and after mid-October of last year.
Ms. Holbrook couldn't be reached for comment. Ms. Holland didn't
respond to a request for comment.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 05, 2016 21:12 ET (01:12 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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