Dr. Robert Schwartz is the son of the late DC Comics founder Jake Leibowitz and his wife Shirley. When Shirley passed away, Schwartz, being her only son, expected to inherit the majority of his mother’s $50 million estate. However, in actually, he will only see approximately $3 million of that estate.
According to media reports:
- Schwartz is accusing his “mother’s longtime attorney, Dennis Drebsky and business manager Ronald Krause, of taking “virtual control” of the hard-of-hearing, nearly blind widow’s life.
- Specifically, Krause escorted the Central Park South resident to social events, handled her finances and even commandeered her phone lines and email, according to court papers.
- Meanwhile Drebsky, a bankruptcy attorney at the firm Nixon Peabody, helped Shirley sell off her real estate, art collection and managed household staff, Schwartz’s suit says.
- The duo allegedly orchestrated an epic 28 revisions of her will over 12 years, settling on a document that gave them $1 million each plus hefty commissions and control over a $30 million charitable foundation.”
While Schwartz is arguing that this is an obvious case of elder abuse, wherein both Shirley’slawyer and business manager induced her to change the will for their benefit, Drebsky and Krause claim: The multimillionaire widow “used her money in general, and her will in particular, as both a punishment and a reward. If the wind blew the wrong direction on a given day, she would reduce your bequest. Conversely, if you jumped through hoops to satisfy her demands, she would reward you.”
As any Florida Probate Litigation law firm West Palm Beach knows, proving elder abuse in Florida can be an uphill battle, even in instance in which the respective elder was ruledincapacitated by the Florida probate court. Florida probate and estate planning attorneys will tell you that the best way to prevent this kind of litigation is to prepare, document, and communicate your wishes to your loved ones. These steps help to avoid complex probate litagation in Florida.
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