Her late grandfather nicknamed her Little Cupcake, but there’s nothing sweet about his granddaughter’s legal battle for her $600 million share of his vast fortune.
Samantha Perelman, daughter of the billionaire investment mogul Ronald Perelman and the late New York Post gossip columnist Claudia Cohen, is suing her uncle James Cohen in New Jersey court, claiming he hoarded the family wealth from the Hudson News empire for his own children at her expense.
Opening arguments in the trial over Robert Cohen’s estate are scheduled for Monday morning.
Claudia Cohen died at age 56 from cancer in 2007. Her father, who signed at least nine wills during his lifetime, passed away five years later in February 2012 at age 86.
Her daughter, who already inherited $67 million from mom and whose dad is worth $14 billion, says she’s suing for even more money to defend Claudia’s legacy.
“My mother taught me about honesty and fairness and that is what I am seeking here,” Samantha, 23, told The Post in a statement.
“My mother also taught me to always stand up for what I believe and that is what has guided me throughout this unfortunate situation,” she said.
Patriarch Robert Cohen lorded over the magazine and newspaper retailer empire Hudson News until he became frail with Parkinson’s in 2003 and his son “came out of the shadows” and allegedly started grabbing business assets, Samantha claims.
The takeover culminated in James selling the retail division of the company in 2008 for $800 million with three-quarters of that going straight into his pocket.
The heart of the family feud is whether proceeds from that sale should have gone to Claudia and then to her sole heir Samantha, or if the money was always meant for James, CEO of his father’s company since 1994.
Samantha’s suit says she lost an outright bequest of $25 million, a $5 million trust fund, a corporate jet, her grandfather’s Englewood, N.J., home and her share in the Palm Beach mansion once James started controlling her frail grandfather.
But Cohen’s camp tells an entirely different story, calling “Samantha’s attempt to turn Robert and James Cohen’s success story into a tale of filial treachery and betrayal” a “sorrowful fiction,” in legal documents.
“Samantha is the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the world, and thus did not stand in need of a large cash bequest from Robert to be assured a comfortable life,” James Cohen, Claudia’s younger brother, argues in the court papers.
What’s more, James notes that her cousin Michael, an orphan, is the primary winner of changes to Robert’s last will. James has four of his own children and is the legal guardian for his later brother’s son Michael. James says that once Claudia died his dad rewrote a prior will, which split his fortune between his two children, to a new version that essentially treated all the grandchildren equally.
Robert was never “unduly influenced” by his son, James insists, and has a 2010 affidavit signed by the disease riddled man to prove it.
“I have lost physical control of my muscles, but I have not lost my mind or my free will,” Robert swore in front of attorneys using a blinking system devised by his nurse because his disease destroyed his ability to speak.
James, who is expected to testify during the trial as well as his niece, says that his father did not treat Samantha and her mother, whom he called “Cupcake” interchangeably.
“Samantha did something her mother never would have done,” insists James, “filed a monstrous suit against her father and brother.” And that’s why Robert revised his last will.
Both Samantha and Ronald have been involved in a series of suits against the Cohens: over the sale of the retail business, the Palm Beach home and the capacity of an elderly and ill Robert to make decisions about his estate.
“This shameless lawsuit is filled with repackaged claims and we are confidant that the truth will again prevail as it has in every previous iteration of this nuisance litigation,” a spokesman for James said. “The truth is that Robert Cohen’s final will clearly expressed his true intent.”
Judge Estela M. De La Cruz — in the non-jury trial that could drag on for a month — will ultimately decide whose story to believe.