Tales of greed, deceit snarl Mori Jr. estate
The cops met 92-year-old Eugene Mori Jr. at his home in Fort Lauderdale to handle the most unusual of queries: Were a group of people really forcing the multimillionaire to give up his riches?
The investigators, acting on a tip from an elder abuse hotline, questioned Mori about whether associates were duping the cancer-stricken man into altering the names on his trust and bank accounts — all against his best interests.
Mori, wholived a life of luxury while running the famed Hialeah Park racetrack in Miami during the mid-1950s, replied that he willingly was making the changes to his important documents. But his encounter with the police in March stood as a stark example of the many worries that Mori’s old friends had about his behavior and business dealings in his final days.
Now, months after Mori’s death, his millions are mired in a legal feud between the people once closest to him and an old flame accused of reentering his life near the very end and steering all his wealth away. The conflict centers around two women in Mori’s life and many others who clashed over where Mori’s millions should go. Amid the pile of accusations of exploitation, manipulation, violated trust and questionable deals, perhaps the biggest victims are the various charities where his riches would’ve gone, his friends say.
“Hewanted the money to go to good things,” said Sally Smith, a friend of Mori’s for 35 years. “It
would be very sad if that money gets hijacked.”
Here’s a look at the battle that has ignited.
A ‘consummate bachelor’
Mori was a charismatic jetsetter who mingled at the highest echelons while overseeing the Hialeah Park Race Track in Miami-Dade County in the 1950s. He owned acres of land across South Florida and New Jersey, antique boats and a homein the South of France.
Mori was the son of a ragsto-riches father who built a fortune running racetracks across the country. One of those tracks was the Hialeah racetrack, which Mori became president of in the late 1950s and helmed for nearly 20 years.
There he rubbed shoulders with actors, celebrities and political leaders such as former U.S. President Harry Truman. In the early 1960s, he helped usher in the end of segregation at the track when he allowed in celebrated jazz singer and dancer Cab Calloway.
After the track was sold in 1972, Mori continued to live on Royal Palm Drive in Fort Lauderdale and managed a vast real estate portfolio that included dozens of acres of land in Miami and New Jersey.
During that time, he was known to travel frequently on his many boats and entertain the company of younger ladies at his home in Fort Lauderdale. “He was a consummate bachelor,” said Kimberley Kladis, who recalled Mori’s parties during her youth.
His longtime partner
Around 1980, when Mori was in his 60s, hemet 21-year-old Eileen Herlihy in South Florida, according to Smith.
The two never married, but the pair were described as “companions,” “friends” and partners who lived and traveled together for 40 years, according to court documents, friends and M or i’ s own correspondence.
“She would have been the closest thing to his wife,” Smith said.
Herlihy and later her brother, Patrick Herlihy, would go on to take on greater importance in M or i’ s life, according to a recent legal complaint filed in Bro ward court son Her li hy’ s behalf that claims he was manipulated into making changes to his estate.
Herlihy and her brother declined to comment for this news article.
By the time of his death in August, Mori was worth $100 million. A generous man, according to friends, he planned that most of his fortune would go to animal and environmental causes and had set up the paperwork to see that happen.
Mori’s will, dated April 2005, listed Eileen Herlihy as the manager of his estate, court records show.
In 2011, Mori created the Eugene Ewan Mori Foundation and listed Herlihy as president. Records show he transferred his wealth to a trust and intended to fund the foundation. Herlihy and her brother were among the trustees.
The causes he wanted to support included the World Wildlife Fund, efforts tosave endangered polar bears and efforts to combat global warming.
An old flame re-emerges
Another woman whose company Mori enjoyed was Margarita Postovit, a Russian national he met in the late 1980s.
The two dated for awhile, but their relationship never was more than casual, according to Herlihy’s complaint and Postovit’s own remarks to authorities.
After leaving Mori’s life for nearly three decades, Postovit supposedly reappeared around 2010, according to the complaint.
Postovit had no money and Mori took pity on her and let her live rent-free in an investment property in Miami, the complaint said.
Postovit told authorities Mori willingly invited her back into his life. She was seen “sparingly” until 2012, when Herlihy moved to Monaco to live in an apartment she leased with Mori, according to Herlihy.
Mori made frequent trips back and forth to Monaco, but continued to live in Fort Lauderdale, according to friends.
After Herlihy moved away, Postovit began to take advantage of Mori’s failing health, isolating him from trusted friends and manipulating his finances, Herlihy said in her complaint.
She said Postovit began to live with Mori and introduced him to two brothers who own a contracting business in New Jersey.
The brothers, Gregory Allen and Daniel Allen, were interested in purchasing parts of Mori’s property, according to Herlihy’s complaint.
Others stepped in to intervene. David Goldstein, Mori’s longtime attorney, fended off the Allens’ initial attempts, finding the brothers to be unqualified buyers, according to Herlihy’s complaint.
But after Mori was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2017 and began to decline in health, Postovit used his compromised state to push Goldstein and others away fromhis circle in place of the Allen brothers, Herlihy says.
Postovit didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Scrutinizing the deals
With Postovit by his side, Mori began to enter into shady business dealings, Herlihy’s complaint alleges.
The Allen brothers presented Mori with a series of proposals for various properties that appeared good on the surface, according to Herlihy’s complaint.
But as each deal progressed, terms were renegotiated and paperwork vanished.
Postovit served as a notary for many of these deals, authorizing signatures on behalf of Mori and the members of his trust, according to the complaint.
“He was manipulated at every turn,” the complaint said.
The deals included a 3-acre piece of land in New Jersey, which Mori allegedly sold in April 2018 without
being paid the $2.15 million he was owed, according to Herlihy’s complaint.
A year later, the land was sold by the company managed by the Allen brothers for over $3 million to another buyer, the complaint says. But Mori’s trust was never paid, it said.
Another deal involved nearly 136 acres of land valued at $50 million that was leased over to the Allen brothers without payment, according to the complaint. The land has since been developed and valued at nearly twice the original amount.
One of the biggest deals is alleged to have occurred in Miami, where Mori owns an investment property that includes over 100 rental apartment units, 9 acres of vacant land and a 47-acre lake.
In October 2019, Postovit and the Allen brothers are accused of luring Morion a cruise out of the country where he signed a 99-year lease whose terms are unknown. According to the complaint, no rental income or payments on the lease have been paid.
Neither Gregory nor Daniel Allen responded to multiple requests for comment.
In addition to these dealings, Postovit is accused of influencing Mori to make revisions to his will and trust.
A struggle for control
By the beginning of this year, Mori’s former circle of friends and loved ones were in a panic. After watching him make questionable deal after deal, they decided to take actions into their own hands.
Mark Lees, a longtime Realtor and friend for Mori, attempted to file a petition for temporary guardianship of Mori, telling the court his physical conditions were clouding his judgment, according to Herlihy’s complaint.
In March, a court-appointed nurse found Mori to be in good fitness.
Later that month, a tipster called the elder abuse hotline to report that Postovit and others were “economically exploiting” Mori and forcing him to change the name on “critical documents and checking accounts that do not represent his best interest,” according to a Fort Lauderdale police report.
Whenpolice arrived, they spoke with Gregory Allen, newly embedded into Mori’s inner circle, who called himself Mori’s attorney.
Mori told police that he willingly changed the information on his trust and bank accounts. He said he knew the source of the hotline call, but did not share names. “They are trying to declare me incompetent,” he said.
Police said that Mori did not seem incapacitated.
Postovit told police she was Mori’s “friend and caretaker,” according to the report.
She said she was part of his trust and the current director of his foundation. She said Herlihy was trying to gain footing in Mori’s life after he took her name out of his trust and requested money back from a bank account they shared.
She said that she had
not forced him to make any changes on his trust and that Mori’s old friends were “disappointed because Eugene’s intention is to leave his money to charities.”
Police closed the case days later.
’Whole thing is a travesty’
Although Postovit told police she intended to honor Mori’s intention to direct funds to charity, it remains unclear if or when that will happen.
Mori died Aug. 30 at his home in Fort Lauderdale. A series of moves directly before and after his death cast uncertainty about the intended fate of his vast estate.
On Aug. 25, a lawsuit was filed in Broward against Mori’s former attorney, Goldstein, on behalf of Postovit, Allen and others to remove Goldstein from the title of Mori’s Fort Lauderdale home, worth $3 million.
Goldstein couldn’t be reached for comment.
That same day, paperwork was filed to remove one of Mori’s previous advisers as the registered agent of his foundation and replace him with Roland Sanchez-Medina, a lawyer working on behalf of Postovit and Allen, according to state business records.
One day later, Sanchez-Medina dissolved the foundation, records show.
A new foundation in Mori’s name, which was created in January this year, lists Postovit and Allen as officers. However, no financial records are available for the nonprofit. It is also unclear if the entirety of Mori’s trust will go to the foundation.
Sanchez-Medina declined to comment for this story.
On Sept. 4, five days after Mori died, another lawsuit was filed on his behalf by Postovit and Allen, this time against Herlihy. It accuses Herlihy of misappropriating $1 million from a bank account the pair shared, as well as owing Mori $11 million froma previous loan he had given her.
It also accuses her of working with others to “harass and intimidate Mori and cause fear, alarm and panic” by orchestrating wellness checks before his death.
In a motion responding to the suit, Herlihy said the complaint “amounts to a wild conspiracy theory with no substantiation.”
In the coming months, these various legal battles will play out in court, chipping slowly away at the estate Mori left behind.
Smith, Mori’s longtime friend, said she is sad tosee it all come to this. “The whole thing is a travesty.”
She said she moved away from South Florida two years ago and hadn’t seen Mori in the time since. She said itwas unfortunate that greed seems to have altered the plans he had — especially considering Mori was never the type of person to be consumed by his wealth and the privilege it afforded him.
“Itwas his100% wish that this money goes to Eileen and the foundation so that it could go to the charitable causes he wanted to fund,” Smithsaid. “I guess we’ll see what the courts say.”