GOLDEN 'FLEECE'
Billionaire media mogul Sumner Redstone says two ex-girlfriends teamed up to fleece him out of $150 million — receiving nearly daily stacks of cash from the smitten nonagenarian that they used to fund a glitzy lifestyle of Rodeo Drive shopping sprees and high-end real estate.
Now the 93-year-old CBS and Viacom chief is suing the pair to get his money back.
In his Los Angeles lawsuit filed Tuesday, Redstone says former flames Manuela Herzer, 53, and Sydney Holland, 45, preyed on his frailty and committed elder abuse for five years before he finally booted them from his $20 million mansion in 2015.
“They manipulated and emotionally abused Redstone to get what they wanted — jewelry, designer clothing, real estate in Beverly Hills, New York and Paris, and money, lots of it,” Redstone attorney Robert Klieger wrote in the suit.
The complaint claims the pair joined forces in 2010 to drive family and friends away from the media bigwig, who is worth nearly $5 billion.
“They made an unlikely but winning team — Herzer, the brains of the operation, who Redstone had known for years and trusted and confided in; and Holland, the younger beauty who had Redstone wrapped around her finger,” the filing said.
Bags of cash were delivered to the mansion almost daily — “typically bundled in stacks of hundred-dollar bills,” the suit states. The suit also details some of the $3.5 million that the pair allegedly charged to Redstone’s credit cards at high-end retailers, indicating the women’s lives were one long shopping spree.
Key to the scheme was keeping Redstone’s fractious family at bay, the suit alleges.
The pair constantly told him that his family never visited because they didn’t love him. Yet the family, led by Redstone’s daughter, Shari, the vice chair of both the CBS and Viacom boards, would try to visit. But she was told by staff that “Redstone was busy or did not want to talk to them,” the suit claims.
The privacy allowed the pair to set up their biggest payday, on May 19, 2014, the day they allegedly got Redstone to sell all his vested interests in CBS and Viacom for about $100 million.
“Later that same day, Redstone made two transfers, $45 million each, to personal banks accounts of Holland and Herzer,” the suit says.
The alleged scam began to unravel when Holland confessed her relationship to another man in August 2015. Her long-time sidekick, Herzer, ordered her out of the mansion.
Six weeks later, Herzer herself was gone, forced out by Redstone after he learned of her role in making Holland exit.
A lawyer for Herzer told The Hollywood Reporter the suit has no merit, saying “all of the gifts Mr. Redstone made to my client and to Sydney Holland were made with his full knowledge and blessing.”
Holland’s attorney could not be identified.