The brother of late gossip columnist Claudia Cohen tried to use dirt from his sister’s divorce from billionaire makeup magnate Ronald Perelman to shut the couple’s daughter, Samantha, out of her grandpa’s $600 million fortune.
But a New York judge stepped in over the summer to quash James Cohen’s subpoenas of the divorce records, which he wanted to use in a trial that is expected to start in New Jersey Monday.
“The purpose of the subpoenas appears to be to find evidence that Claudia downplayed any expectation of receiving a large inheritance from her father,” Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in July.
Engoron said the evidence “arguably would have helped her [Claudia] in her negotiations and litigation with her husband, but might arguably hurt Samantha’s litigation against James.”
A spokesman for the Perelmans called the subpoenas a “diversionary tactic.” with the intent of embarrassing the self-made billionaire.
The New Jersey trial hinges on Samantha’s allegations that James Cohen improperly influenced his dad, Robert Cohen, to disinherit Samantha right after her mom died in 2007. She says her uncle exerted “undue influence” over the old man, who could barely speak due to a neurological disease, to hijack his Hudson News empire, draining him of the small fortune that Samantha, 23, would have inherited when
Robert Cohen died in 2012.
The father-daughter legal team says uncle James started grabbing Hudson News’ assets in 2003, culminating in his selling the company in 2008 for $800 million — three-quarters of that going directly to himself.
Samantha says she lost an outright bequest of $25 million, a $5 million trust fund, her grandfather’s Englewood, NJ, home and her share in a Palm Beach waterfront mansion.
A spokesman for James Cohen said Perelman has lost 18 court battles with the New Jersey family. “One might wonder what he’s trying to hide,” the spokesman said about the divorce documents.
He added, “Mr. Cohen Sr. didn’t want him having control of the estate.”