Redstone Ex-Girlfriend Threatens to Name Other Women Who Received Gifts
December 12 2016 - 5:56PM
Dow Jones News
By Keach Hagey
One of Sumner Redstone's ex-girlfriends threatened to name other
women to whom he gave tens of millions of dollars and to
potentially call executives including CBS Corp. Chief Executive
Leslie Moonves as witnesses in support of her claim that the media
mogul had the mental capacity to give her major gifts.
In documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday,
Sydney Holland formally responded to the lawsuit against her and
another former companion of Mr. Redstone's, Manuela Herzer, that
Mr. Redstone's legal team filed in October, looking to reclaim the
more than $150 million that the women received from the 93-year-old
billionaire.
Ms. Holland, 44 years old, who dated Mr. Redstone for five years
ending last year, also filed a cross-complaint seeking damages --
including monthly payments -- from Mr. Redstone for allegedly
breaking his promise to take care of her and her adopted daughter
for the rest of their lives.
Mr. Redstone controls Viacom Inc. and CBS through a roughly 80%
voting stake in each. He has been at the center of a series of
legal battles over the past year around questions of his mental
capacity, concerning his ability to make personal and health-care
decisions as well as business decisions.
In her cross-complaint, Ms. Holland argues that Mr. Redstone, in
his role at the time as executive chairman of CBS and Viacom, was
actively commenting on the running of the companies in filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission at the same time that he
gave a "large cash gift" to Ms. Holland in May 2014. He was also
still receiving significant compensation from the media companies
at that time.
In Mr. Redstone's elder abuse suit against Ms. Holland and Ms.
Herzer, his legal team alleges that they "commandeered" his life
beginning in 2010 and coaxed him into liquidating almost his entire
accessible fortune to bequeath to the women.
Ms. Herzer's lawyer, Ronald Richards, has said that the
elder-abuse suit from Mr. Redstone has "no merit whatsoever."
Ms. Holland further alleges that she and Ms. Herzer were far
from the only women to whom Mr. Redstone gave millions. The women
included an "aspiring reality show producer" who received
approximately $21 million, a "flight attendant on the CBS corporate
jet" who got $18 million and her sister, with whom Mr. Redstone
also became involved, who got $6 million. Another half dozen other
women also received money while Ms. Holland was residing with Mr.
Redstone, she alleges.
"Sydney may be forced to disclose their identities and call
Redstone's celebrity friends and Viacom and CBS executives as
witnesses," Ms. Holland's lawyers, Mark Holscher and Sierra
Elizabeth of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, wrote in the
cross-complaint. They also wrote that Mr. Moonves "knew about
Redstone's largest monetary gift to Sydney, on May 20, 2014."
Mr. Moonves declined to comment.
"Ms. Holland's cross-complaint is a work of fiction punctuated
by not-so-subtle threats of extortion and an overwhelming stench of
greed," Mr. Redstone's legal team said in a statement. "The
critical witnesses will not be Mr. Redstone's 'celebrity friends'
but instead the nurses and household staff members who, unlike Ms.
Holland, were by his side day and night. It will be for the jury to
weigh the contemporaneous notes and trial testimony of those
disinterested witnesses against Ms. Holland's narcissistic false
narrative. In the end, we are confident that justice will be
done."
Mr. Richards, who is representing Ms. Herzer in both the
California case against the two women and a separate New York case
seeking to challenge Mr. Redstone's gifting her of an apartment at
the Carlyle Hotel, has sought to depose Mr. Redstone in both
cases.
However, Mr. Redstone's lawyers have said he cannot be deposed
for medical reasons.
"It's very easy to sue somebody and then take the position that
you don't have to appear for your deposition," Mr. Richards said.
"At the end of the day, that's not going to work out very well in
court."
Joe Flint contributed to this article.
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 12, 2016 18:41 ET (23:41 GMT)
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