{"id":5027,"date":"2025-04-01T16:41:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T16:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/daughters-expand-legal-battle-with-brother\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T16:41:23","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T16:41:23","slug":"daughters-expand-legal-battle-with-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/daughters-expand-legal-battle-with-brother\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughters Expand Legal Battle With Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tT<\/span>ony Bennett\u2019s daughters have expanded their legal battle against their older brother, claiming in a new lawsuit that he has \u201cabused\u201d his power over the late singer\u2019s affairs to \u201cenrich himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEchoing allegations from a separate case they filed last year, Antonia and Johanna Bennett<\/strong> accuse D\u2019Andrea \u201cDanny\u201d Bennett<\/strong> of \u201cimproper and unlawful conduct\u201d in his role as trustee of the family estate, both before and after the legendary singer\u2019s 2023 death.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey say the legal action is necessary to \u201cprotect their father\u2019s wishes,\u201d which were that all four of his children \u201cbe treated equally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSince Tony\u2019s death, Johanna and Antonia have discovered that Danny exercised complete and unchecked control over Tony and his financial affairs prior to and following his death through multiple fiduciary and other roles of authority that Danny has abused, and continues to abuse, for his own significant financial gain,\u201d attorneys for the Bennett sisters write in the Monday filing.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong other allegations, Antonia and Johanna say Danny paid himself \u201cexcessive and unearned commissions\u201d and gave \u201csubstantial loans and gifts to himself and his children\u201d prior to the singer\u2019s death: \u201cDanny engaged in these improper transactions without accountability or oversight of any kind, freely using and controlling Tony\u2019s assets and trust assets often as if they were Danny\u2019s own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAntonia and Johanna first sued Danny<\/a> in a petition filed last summer in the same New York court, but that case sought only to force Danny to open the books for the family trust. The new filing is more of an outright lawsuit, accusing him of various forms of wrongdoing and is seeking monetary damages.<\/p>\n

\n\tAn attorney for Danny did not immediately return a request for comment on the allegations Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn court filings in the earlier case, Danny\u2019s lawyers have argued that he was \u201cfully authorized to take the steps he took\u201d and that Bennett had \u201cspecifically excluded his daughters from ever having any role in such matters after his death.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe undisputed facts establish that Tony provided Danny with authority to manage his affairs and business opportunities, and that Danny did so honestly and in an appropriate manner,\u201d his attorney wrote in a February filing seeking to dismiss the case. \u201cIronically, Petitioners, despite their baseless complaints, are the beneficiaries of Danny\u2019s hard work and devotion to his father.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLike the earlier case, Monday\u2019s lawsuit repeatedly references last year\u2019s sale of Bennett\u2019s likeness rights and other intellectual property to the firm Iconoclast. Antonia and Johanna say Danny earned millions from that deal and had \u201cclear conflicts of interest\u201d when he executed it, but has refused to provide them with a clear accounting of the proceeds or other key information about the sale.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDanny\u2019s explanation for the timing and reasons for the Iconoclast transaction contradict the financial information Danny has provided and fail to establish in any way that the transaction was appropriate, properly valued, free of conflicts of interest and improper self-dealing, and in the best interest of the beneficiaries,\u201d attorneys for the daughters write.<\/p>\n

\n\tIconoclast is not accused of any wrongdoing in the lawsuit. The company, which describes itself as \u201cdedicated to preserving and growing the legacy of culturally significant artists,\u201d declined to comment on Tuesday. In the earlier case, Danny\u2019s lawyers argued that he\u2019s been \u201cfully transparent\u201d about the deal, including providing the full agreement and a detailed breakdown of income.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe daughters also claim in the new case that Danny mishandled Bennett\u2019s physical property after his death, doing so in a \u201cmalicious and retaliatory manner\u201d simply because they had asked for more transparency into the financial affairs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDanny prohibited Johanna and Antonia from retaining certain items that are priceless to them, and he kept them from even entering Tony\u2019s apartment to see these items for a prolonged period of time,\u201d their lawyers write. \u201cDanny also discarded items of tremendous sentimental value to Johanna and Antonia without notice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tony Bennett\u2019s daughters have expanded their legal battle against their older brother, claiming in a new lawsuit that he has \u201cabused\u201d his power over the late singer\u2019s affairs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[435,222,5318,1495,136],"class_list":["post-5027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-battle","tag-brother","tag-daughters","tag-expand","tag-legal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}