A jilted inheritor 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 Submit has realized.
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 household conspired to keep away from New York state revenue and property taxes by falsely claiming that his mom Phyllis Pressman resided in West Palm Seashore, Fla.
In actual fact, the widow of retail legend Fred Pressman – who famously reworked his father Barney’s males’s swimsuit enterprise right into a luxurious empire within the Sixties – had been residing year-round in her oceanfront mansion in Southampton, NY for the final six years of her life, the swimsuit claims.
“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 12 months at 95 and who, in response to the swimsuit, “was renowned for her exacting and highly developed taste and sophistication” – is alleged to be price upwards of $100 million, in response to a supply near the case.
That features the two.3-acre, oceanfront unfold at 346 Meadow Ln. in Southampton that’s at present on the block for $38.5 million. Her swanky Higher East Aspect condominium, listed for $3.95 million, is in contract.
A number of the late matriarch’s jewellery and paintings are also slated for public sale this fall by Freeman’s-Hindman. They may 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.
As completely reported by The Submit, Bob Pressman had beforehand labored on an as-yet unpublished manuscript for an incendiary tell-all e book that blamed his household for Barney’s demise.
Pressman was lower out of his mom’s will after years of household squabbling, capped by his refusal to take part within the alleged tax fraud, in response to a supply near the case. A belief settlement drawn up by Phyllis’s attorneys declared, “Bob doesn’t get anything for reasons he well knows,” a supply near the case informed The Submit.
Bob’s sisters Elizabeth and Nancy, who have 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 enterprise. Bob, who was accountable for the corporate’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 mentioned in a press release on the time. “They simply do not like that result,” he added.
A New York choose awarded the sisters $11.3 million in 2002. Their brother appealed the award.
In the meantime, Bob’s tell-all manuscript accuses his brother Eugene Pressman – higher generally known as Gene – of working Barneys into the bottom with lavish spending tasks, whilst he allegedly spent his time partying by the Nineteen Eighties at Studio 54.
On the time, Gene fired again, accusing his brother of getting “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.”
The e book 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 huge tab that was being run up.
Bob’s new lawsuit – which is simply coming to mild now after a choose unsealed it final week – claims that the allegedly tax-cheating members of the Pressman household could possibly be chargeable for upwards of $50 million in again taxes and penalties.
An amended criticism filed in New York state Supreme Court docket in September lists Bob Pressman as a whistleblower below the New York False Claims Act, which might entitle him as much as 30% of any restoration. He filed his unique criticism final July.
Based on the swimsuit, Phyllis initially moved to West Palm Seashore in 2000 – 4 years after her husband Fred died – when she married her second husband, philanthropist Joseph Gurwin.
Gurwin, whose fortune got here from army gear together with fuel masks and bulletproof vests, died in 2009. Phyllis continued to stay in Palm Seashore till 2018, when she moved again to New York full time, in response to the swimsuit.
In mid-2021, Phyllis Pressman “successfully recruited” her kids Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy to falsely assert that she lived a lot of the 12 months in Palm Seashore” in her property’s authorized paperwork – after Bob had refused to take action, in response to the criticism.
As a part of the alleged scheme, Gene, Elizabeth and Nancy in late 2023 – only a few months earlier than Phyllis died – helped transfer their mom to hospice care in Palm Seashore “when she was ill and should not have been traveling,” whilst they transferred the Hamptons mansion to a restricted legal responsibility firm, in response to the swimsuit.
In 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.
As proof of Phyllis’s New York residency from 2018 on, the criticism alleges that she had her prescriptions stuffed at an area Southampton pharmacy, repeatedly used the landline at her oceanfront dwelling, 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 have been notified concerning the lawsuit inside the previous couple of weeks, Bob Pressman’s legal professional Randall Fox informed The Submit.
If profitable, it might be among the many high 5 such circumstances introduced in New York.
The Empire state has recovered $674 million from deadbeat filers since 2010 when it established the Taxpayer Safety Bureau, of which Fox was the founding bureau chief.
The biggest particular person settlement below the False Claims Act was for $105 million, which was paid in 2021 by Swedish hedge fund supervisor Thomas Sandell. He allegedly arrange a shell workplace in Boca Raton, Fla. to keep away from paying taxes on his NYC enterprise, in response to the New York Lawyer Basic’s workplace. Sandell didn’t admit wrongdoing.
