Perelmans Haved Added A New Generation to Their Byzantine Family Legal Battles

We’ve actually lost track of which Perelmans are mad at whom. What we know is that a bunch of rich people with Philadelphia ties keep making “Dynasty” look boring and humble. Anyway, the New York Times reports:

Samantha Perelman, a 23-year-old student at Columbia University, will be at the center of a nasty family battle in a New Jersey courtroom this week.

She’s a legal novice, but she won’t be lacking for advice. Her father is Ronald O. Perelman, the 70-year-old financier and chairman of the cosmetics company Revlon, whose own fortune is estimated at roughly $14 billion. For his part, Mr. Perelman has never shied away from a court fight, having sued companies, ex-wives and a former business partner.

For years he waged war with Samantha’s uncle James Cohen, the head of Hudson Media, magazine and newspaper wholesaler whose name is emblazoned across stores in dozens of airports around the country, charging Mr. Cohen siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars out of her inheritance. Now his daughter is leading her own charge, with her father picking up the bill.

And it’s that relationship that’s key. Samantha Perelman’s mother was the late Claudia Cohen. She was heir to the fortune amassed by Robert Cohen, the founder of Hudson Media. Samantha’s lawsuit alleges that her uncle, James, used “undue influence” to reduce her mother’s inheritance. She wants the court to reinstate a 2004 will, in which her mother—and now Samantha—would’ve received hundreds of millions of dollars.

Keeping up?

Other highlights from the NYT piece:

• “What he did was greedy and not nice,” said Ms. Perelman in a videoconference interview from her father’s yacht off the shore of Greece.

• “My ex-brother-in-law is using Samantha as a tool to further his own gains,” (James Cohen) said in an interview.

• There is a legal agreement barring Mr. Perelman from entering the Cohen family’s house in Palm Beach, Fla. The Cohen family said that after Ms. Cohen’s death, Mr. Perelman crashed a family bar mitzvah and spent most of the celebration assessing Robert Cohen’s capacity, who at the time was in a wheelchair.

And, well, there’s a lot more and it’s all very byzantine. The only thing we know for sure? Kristin shot J.R. No, that has nothing to do with it, but still seems fitting somehow.