Relatives question corporate raider's will that leaves bulk of estate to business partner

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Posted 9:17AM on Thursday, February 14, 2002

MIAMI - Relatives of corporate raider Victor Posner are questioning his will, which leaves the bulk of his multimillion dollar estate to his business associate and gives three of his four children nothing. Brenda Nestor, Posner's longtime business associate and one-time girlfriend, is the chief beneficiary of his more than $195 million estate. The will was filed Monday at the Miami-Dade County courthouse hours after Posner died of pneumonia. Family members questioned the will and said Nestor, 53, had kept Posner, 83, captive in his Golden Beach home during the last year of his life, The Miami Herald reported Thursday. Jacob Hank Sopher, a wealthy parking-lot owner and Posner's nephew, said that his uncle was mentally incapacitated when the will was drawn up in June. "I can assure you it will not go unchallenged," Sopher said. "Brenda and her advisers will have to answer in the glare of judicial daylight." Nestor denied the allegations and said the children were given large trust funds while their father was alive. Posner was not speaking to the three excluded children at the time of his death, she said. The will left $250,000 each to his son L. Troy Posner and sister Beatrice Cohen. Posner, a financier and industrialist, once owned Arby's, Royal Crown Cola and Sharon Steel. He was a fearsome corporate takeover artist in the 1960s, '70s and '80s with an empire once valued at $4 billion. Legal troubles later befell Posner, who pleaded no contest to tax evasion and was found guilty of securities fraud along with his son Steven Posner. Steven Posner's lawyer, Harris Buchbinder, said his client has seen the will and hasn't shown any interest in suing. Gail Posner's attorney Robert Josefberg said "Nothing has been filed at this point."