FL: $200 Million Estate Battle Pits Family Of Millionaire Against His Younger Girlfriend...
Slimpickins
$200 million riding on last years of Posner's life
BY MIMI WHITEFIELD AND ELAINE WALKER
DIVERSE HOLDINGS: Victor Posner amassed a variety of businesses, including
Arby's, Royal Crown Cola and Sharon Steel.
The late Victor Posner hosted a Cinderella-theme birthday party at his
Golden Beach mansion last September for twin 2-year-old girls, played the
stock market, was directing his companies, and was shopping for a new yacht
just before his death Feb. 11.
Those were the last days of the 83-year-old corporate raider, as painted by
his business associate and former girlfriend Brenda Nestor, her lawyers and
Posner's brother-in-law Melvin Colvin.
Others tell a conflicting version: An ailing and mentally feeble Posner was
a virtual hostage in his oceanfront home, isolated from his children and
grandchildren and longtime business colleagues and friends, with Nestor in
control of his business affairs. They describe him as a man who slipped in
and out of lucidity and was a shadow of the business titan they once knew.
Which scenario is accurate is pivotal to an acrimonious probate battle now
being played out before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Bruce Levy. The case pits
Nestor, 53, and the Ferrell Schultz Carter Zumpano & Fertel law firm,
counsel for the estate, against Posner's 59-year-old daughter, Gail Posner,
and Martin Rosen, a New York lawyer who once handled Victor Posner's
affairs.
At stake: an estate conservatively estimated at $200 million. Just as much
or more of Posner's wealth is in a series of trusts benefiting primarily his
children.
The issue: the validity of a will signed June 28, 2001, that makes Nestor
the chief beneficiary and personal representative of Posner's estate and
cuts out all but one of Posner's children, or a March 26, 1996, will that
makes Gail Posner the main beneficiary and appoints her, Nestor and Rosen as
the personal representatives.
Rosen and Gail Posner want the 2001 will tossed out and Ferrell Schultz
disqualified as counsel for the estate.
This is no ordinary probate dispute. Intertwined with it are the feelings of
Posner's adult children toward Nestor, and a family whose members haven't
hesitated to sue each other over money through the years. When Posner died,
Gail, her twin brother, Steven, and half-sister Tracy weren't on speaking
terms with him. Only Tracy's brother Troy had contact with Posner, and he
was left $250,000 in Posner's new will.
The 2001 will also leaves Posner's grandchildren nothing. But it says that
if Nestor did not survive Posner, her children -- the twin girls who
celebrated at the Cinderella party and 8-year-old triplet boys -- would be
the chief beneficiaries.
`DYSFUNCTIONAL'
''It is probably one of the most dysfunctional families,'' said Jacob
''Hank'' Sopher, a parking lot mogul who is Posner's nephew. 'It was all
created by Victor Posner. It's not the kids' fault. Victor spoiled these
kids rotten.''
The case will turn on the last few years of Posner's life and whether the
man who once kindled fear in executive suites across America was really in
control of his affairs. Daughter Gail and Rosen allege that he had
deteriorated until he was ''unaware of the alleged [2001] will and/or was
not competent to execute'' it.
Their attorneys will try to prove that Posner was under ''undue influence''
at the time the new will was written.
''They'll have to prove that someone close to him used their manipulative
ability to discourage him from leaving money to what would have been the
natural object of his bounty -- his family and children,'' said James B.
Davis, a lawyer specializing in estate planning at Gunster Yoakley & Stewart
in Fort Lauderdale.
Another argument they will make is that Posner wasn't of sound mind when he
signed the will.
No one made that allegation when Posner was alive, contends Milton M.
Ferrell Jr., an attorney for the estate. 'They'd rather have been blown out
of a cannon than go to Victor and say, `You're nuts' while he was alive,''
Ferrell said.
Posner's brother-in-law Melvin Colvin, the only family member who spent time
with him during the last months of his life, says Posner remained active in
his business affairs until just before he was hospitalized Jan. 22,
suffering from pneumonia.
''He was up to date on everything that went on. If he had to sign papers, he
would want everything explained and he would question everything,'' said
Colvin, who has worked for Posner since 1948 and whose sister Miriam was
Posner's first wife.
In recent months, Colvin said Posner was on the phone almost daily with his
stockbroker, took trips on his boat or ate breakfast at his favorite
restaurant, Denny's.
But Gail Posner and Sopher say that Nestor and Posner's bodyguards kept them
away, even denying Gail access to her dying father's hospital room. Colvin
says Posner didn't want visitors.
During the time relatives were alleging that Posner was a hostage in his own
home, Nestor says Posner entertained regularly. Pictures from her twins'
birthday party show a frail Posner standing in front of a life-size
Cinderella carriage, holding the girls and mingling with guests.
But others say that while there were parties at Posner's home, he wasn't
always part of the festivities.
The last time lawyer Clifford Steele saw Posner was during a Christmas party
at his home in December 2000. At Nestor's request, Steele and his wife sat
''baby-sitting'' Posner in one room, while Nestor and others partied in
another part of the house.
Steele, who worked for Posner for 14 years and was also hired by Posner to
represent Gail, said that from 1997 on, there was an obvious deterioration
in Posner's mental condition. ''He would come in and out of lucidity,''
Steele said.
''Sometimes he wouldn't know where he was and he couldn't remember things we
had talked about the same day or an hour before,'' said the lawyer, who
spoke with Posner regularly by phone until he was fired last June.
``Sometimes he would appear as sharp as a tack and just like his old self.
Other times he would appear very confused.''
Nelson Peltz, chairman and chief executive of Triarc Cos. -- the holding
company that owns Arby's restaurants -- last visited Posner about two years
ago. Even then, he said, he was surprised by the change in Posner, whose DWG
Corp. Peltz purchased in 1993 and converted into Triarc.
''He would point to Brenda's kids as his kids,'' said Peltz, who spent close
to 45 minutes at Posner's Golden Beach home. ``There were a couple of
different things he said that were clearly factually incorrect.''
Posner's longtime physician, Dr. Richard Elias, said Posner's health had
''really deteriorated'' in recent months. He had fought back from an
abdominal aneurysm in 1994 but was never quite the same, Elias said.
More recently, Elias said, Posner ''ate like a bird'' and rapidly lost about
15 pounds. Elias feared that Posner could have colon cancer, but he wouldn't
agree to tests.
When Posner came down with pneumonia, his body was so weak that it didn't
respond to antibiotics. ''He couldn't fight us at that point,'' said Elias,
chief medical officer at Miami Heart Institute. ``At the end, he was almost
comatose.''
Within hours of Posner's death, the new will had been filed in Miami-Dade
Circuit Court, and the legal briefs related to the estate began piling up.
In a challenge to the will filed last week, Gail Posner and Rosen contend
that over the past few years, Nestor took control of Posner and his business
affairs ``and systematically excluded everyone from Mr. Posner's life except
those who were loyal to her, who she hired and who were controlled by her.''
In the weeks before the new Posner will was executed, Rosen and Steele were
fired and Gail Posner was kicked off the board of directors of Security
Management Corp., Posner's main holding company.
''Brenda likes people who say what she wants them to say,'' Rosen said. ``I
wouldn't do that. I call things the way I see them, and she didn't like
that.''
GLOVES OFF
Now the gloves are off in a battle where neither side will come out looking
particularly good. Even the language in the legal pleadings is a bit catty.
''Brenda Nestor Castellano, Mr. Posner's on again/off again girlfriend, who
is married to another man,'' is the way she's described in a brief filed by
Aaron Podhurst and Robert Josefsberg, Gail Posner's attorneys. They seek to
have Ferrell Schultz disqualified from handling the estate on grounds of
conflicts of interest.
Nestor, who has been married to Bobby Castellano for 13 ½ years, uses Nestor
as her professional name.
During a recent interview in Ferrell's office, Nestor called Posner ''the
most brilliant man I ever met, my best friend in life and my mentor.''
Nestor said she had a ''close personal relationship'' with Posner from the
time she was 21 until her early 30s. After the romance cooled, they remained
close and Posner encouraged her to join his business.
During Posner's heyday in the 1980s, his extensive holdings included DWG
Corp., the owner of Arby's and Royal Crown Cola; Sharon Steel; NVF Co.;
Pennsylvania Engineering; and Salem Corp. At the time, he was one of the
country's highest-paid executives, earning as much as $7 million.
''He called it the Posner graduate school of business,'' Nestor said. ``I
think he was very frustrated trying to bring up people to learn his business
and couldn't seem to find anyone around him to do it. He told me if I
continued on, [his business empire] would be mine.''
ROLE IN COMPANIES
At the time of his death, she was vice chairman of Posner's companies; he
was chairman. In a biography distributed by her publicist, Nestor is
credited with being the primary negotiator between Posner and Peltz in the
DWG deal.
When Peltz agreed in August 1999 to purchase Posner's remaining 24 percent
stake in the company, he handled the details of the transaction with Nestor.
But Peltz said he was never impressed with the quality of Posner's business
associates.
''It was not the way I would run a business,'' Peltz said. ``Victor had the
opportunity to have capable business people around him, but he chose not
to.''
Since Posner and his son Steven had a falling out in the late 1980s over
trust money, Nestor's star had risen.
She says her succession had been ''prearranged'' and Posner indicated that
someday he wanted Nestor's children to carry on his business legacy. ''He
once said you can pick your godchildren, not your children,'' Nestor said.
But Rosen said that after almost 40 years as Posner's attorney, he had a
better idea of his last wishes. ''I was closer to Victor Posner than any man
alive,'' Rosen said. ``I knew what he wanted. Mr. Posner's true desires are
evident in the most recent will I drafted.''
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