Exclusive | Jilted Barneys heir alleges family – Business News
A jilted heir to the fallen Barneys luxurious dynasty has accused his late mom and siblings of orchestrating an elaborate tax fraud scheme that allegedly cheated New York state out of $20 million, The Post has discovered.
Bob Pressman – the 71-year-old grandson of Barney Pressman, who based the now-defunct retail icon in 1923 – alleges in an explosive lawsuit that his family conspired to keep away from New York state income and property taxes by falsely claiming that his mom Phyllis Pressman resided in West Palm Beach, Fla.
In reality, the widow of retail legend Fred Pressman – who famously reworked his father Barney’s males’s swimsuit business into a luxurious empire within the Nineteen Sixties – had been residing year-round in her oceanfront mansion in Southampton, NY for the final six years of her life, the swimsuit claims.
Bob Pressman stands subsequent to his mom, Phyllis Pressman, at a dinner in 2009.
“Phyllis Pressman freely told the people around her that she did not like Florida and did not intend to make it her permanent home,” the criticism alleges.
The property of Phyllis Pressman – who died final yr at 95 and who, in keeping with the swimsuit, “was renowned for her exacting and highly developed taste and sophistication” – is claimed to be value upwards of $100 million, in keeping with a source close to the case.
That contains the 2.3-acre, oceanfront unfold at 346 Meadow Ln. in Southampton that’s presently on the block for $38.5 million. Her swanky Upper East Side condominium, listed for $3.95 million, is in contract.
Some of the late matriarch’s jewellery and paintings are also slated for public sale this fall by Freeman’s-Hindman. They will embody items from Bulgari, Harry Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels; and work by American artists Frederick Carl Frieseke, Edward Henry Potthast, William Merrett Chase and Robert Reid.
Elizabeth-Pressman Neubardt was unveiling a new jewellery assortment for Barneys in 2005. Patrick McMullan through Getty Images
As solely reported by The Post, Bob Pressman had beforehand labored on an as-yet unpublished manuscript for an incendiary tell-all ebook that blamed his family for Barney’s demise.
Pressman was cut out of his mom’s will after years of family squabbling, capped by his refusal to take part within the alleged tax fraud, in keeping with a source close to the case. A trust settlement drawn up by Phyllis’s attorneys declared, “Bob doesn’t get anything for reasons he well knows,” a source close to the case instructed The Post.
Phyllis Pressman “was renowned for her exacting and highly developed taste and sophistication.” Michael Schwartz/New York Post
Bob’s sisters Elizabeth and Nancy, who had been patrons for Barneys, sued him a number of years after the retailer’s 1996 chapter, accusing him of dishonest them out of $30 million from the business. Bob, who was in charge of the company’s funds on the time, denied the allegations.
“The Pressman sisters are trying to reinvent issues that have been thoroughly reviewed, and resolved or dismissed in conjunction with the Barneys Inc. Chapter 11 case confirmed by the bankruptcy court over six months ago,” Bob Pressman stated in a assertion on the time. “They simply do not like that result,” he added.
A New York decide awarded the sisters $11.3 million in 2002. Their brother appealed the award.
Meanwhile, Bob’s tell-all manuscript accuses his brother Eugene Pressman – higher often known as Gene – of operating Barneys into the ground with lavish spending tasks, at the same time as he allegedly spent his time partying via the Eighties at Studio 54.
At the time, Gene fired back, accusing his brother of having “a casual relationship with the truth” and claiming, “Bob conveniently forgets he was in fact the co-CEO responsible for the financial stability of firm, a role in which by all measures he massively failed.”
Gene Pressman ran Barneys together with his brother Bob after their father Fred handed away in 1996. New York Post
The ebook proposal, against this, claims that Bob “argued with his family all the time when the Barneys New York Madison Avenue store was being built,” protesting the large tab that was being run up.
Bob’s new lawsuit – which is just coming to gentle now after a decide unsealed it final week – claims that the allegedly tax-cheating members of the Pressman family may very well be chargeable for upwards of $50 million in back taxes and penalties.
An amended criticism filed in New York state Supreme Court in September lists Bob Pressman as a whistleblower beneath the New York False Claims Act, which may entitle him up to 30% of any restoration. He filed his unique criticism final July.
According to the swimsuit, Phyllis initially moved to West Palm Beach in 2000 – 4 years after her husband Fred died – when she married her second husband, philanthropist Joseph Gurwin.
Gurwin, whose fortune got here from navy tools together with fuel masks and bulletproof vests, died in 2009. Phyllis continued to stay in Palm Beach till 2018, when she moved back to New York full time, in keeping with the swimsuit.
Barneys was a luxurious fixture on Madison Avenue. Frank Leonardo/New York Post
In mid-2021, Phyllis Pressman “successfully recruited” her youngsters Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy to falsely assert that she lived most of the yr in Palm Beach” in her property’s legal paperwork – after Bob had refused to take action, in keeping with the criticism.
As half of the alleged scheme, Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy in late 2023 – simply a few months earlier than Phyllis died – helped transfer their mom to hospice care in Palm Beach “when she was ill and should not have been traveling,” at the same time as they transferred the Hamptons mansion to a restricted legal responsibility company, in keeping with the swimsuit.
As a consequence, the three siblings “all increased the size of their inheritance from Phyllis Pressman because they helped the Estate avoid the New York estate taxes that it was obligated to pay,” the swimsuit claims.
Fred Pressman reworked Barneys into a high fashion vacation spot for European designers. Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
As proof of Phyllis’s New York residency from 2018 on, the criticism alleges that she had her prescriptions crammed at a native Southampton pharmacy, commonly used the landline at her oceanfront home, and employed two aides on the home.
Bob Pressman declined to touch upon the criticism, as did his sisters Elizabeth and Nancy. Gene Pressman didn’t reply to a calls and emails requesting remark.
The siblings had been notified concerning the lawsuit within the previous couple of weeks, Bob Pressman’s legal professional Randall Fox instructed The Post.
If profitable, it could be among the many prime 5 such instances introduced in New York.
Barneys was based by Barney Pressman in 1923. The New York Post
The Empire state has recovered $674 million from deadbeat filers since 2010 when it established the Taxpayer Protection Bureau, of which Fox was the founding bureau chief.
The largest particular person settlement beneath the False Claims Act was for $105 million, which was paid in 2021 by Swedish hedge fund supervisor Thomas Sandell. He allegedly set up a shell workplace in Boca Raton, Fla. to keep away from paying taxes on his NYC business, in keeping with the New York Attorney General’s workplace. Sandell didn’t admit wrongdoing.
