NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Bennett’s two daughters have filed a brand new lawsuit in opposition to their brother, alleging he illegally enriched himself at their expense in opposition to their father’s needs each earlier than and after the legendary singer’s loss of life in 2023.
Antonia and Johanna Bennett filed the lawsuit Monday in New York in opposition to D’Andrea “Danny” Bennett, who was their father’s supervisor and heads their household belief.
“Since Tony’s loss of life, Johanna and Antonia have found that Danny exercised full and unchecked management over Tony and his monetary affairs previous to and following his loss of life by way of a number of fiduciary and different roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his personal important monetary achieve,” the swimsuit alleges.
It says Danny Bennett took benefit of his father’s diminished capability late in life because of Alzheimer’s illness to make offers to make hundreds of thousands for himself and his firm, together with the sale shortly earlier than his loss of life of Tony Bennett’s catalog and his title, likeness and picture rights to the model growth agency Iconoclast.
The sisters beforehand sued their brother in June in search of an accounting of their father’s property and alleging Danny Bennett had mishandled them. The brand new swimsuit makes extra severe and extra particular allegations of wrongdoing.
Attorneys for Danny Bennett didn’t instantly reply to an after-hours electronic mail in search of remark.
In courtroom filings within the earlier lawsuit, his attorneys stated the sisters’ claims had been baseless, that they’d been supplied with enough accounting, and that Tony Bennett trusted Danny Bennett utterly throughout his life and credited his son with pulling him out of monetary troubles and reviving his profession.
Danny Bennett was his father’s private {and professional} supervisor with energy of lawyer, was supervisor of his firm Benedetto Arts, and is the trustee of the household belief, the swimsuit says.
The brand new lawsuit accuses him of benefiting from “self-interested and conflicted transactions, extreme and unearned commissions,” and “substantial loans and presents to himself and his kids” which have diminished property that Tony Bennett’s will requires his 4 kids to separate equally.
One other brother, Daegal “Dae” Bennett, and Tony’s widow, Susan Bennett, had been additionally named as defendants within the lawsuit.
The swimsuit says the sisters have obtained a “single modest distribution” of $245,000 apiece that’s “nowhere near what they consider they’re entitled to obtain.”
The sisters additionally allege their brother has gotten rid of things of nice sentimental worth to them in a “malicious and retaliatory method” after their makes an attempt to get an accounting by way of the earlier lawsuit.
Bennett’s piano, which Antonia says was promised to her, was in “horrible situation” once they had been allowed to see it in a tour of the singer’s house, the place they are saying they had been denied entry to a lot of his property.
The lawsuit seeks damages to be decided at trial, and for a decide to take away Danny Bennett as head of the household belief.
Tony Bennett, a legendary interpreter of basic American songs who created new requirements together with “I Left My Coronary heart In San Francisco,” died in 2023 at age 96. There was no particular trigger, however he had been recognized with Alzheimer’s in 2016.
Bennett launched greater than 70 albums. He gained 19 Grammy Awards and a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
