Leonard Cohen's Kids: Dad's Ex-Manager Fiddled With Trust

Leonard Cohen died more than six years ago, at the age of 82, but the battle over his $48 million estate continues. It's the "Hallelujah" singer-songwriter's adult children, Adam Cohen and Lorca Cohen, versus his former manager, Robert Kory, who is the manager of Cohen's trust, and the kids have now filed a motion that accuses Kory and his own attorney of forgery, reports Variety. Per the Cohen kids' filing, they want Kory officially yanked from his trustee role so that they can take over the trust, and for Kory to repay whatever money he earned while serving as trustee. "Since Leonard's death in 2016, Kory has been holding himself out as trustee and exercising control over the Trust and its assets solely on the basis of forgery and fraud," the motion reads.

At the center of the Cohen children's claim is the accusation that Kory was behind the removal of at least one page of the trust paperwork Cohen had signed that designated Adam and Lorca Cohen as co-trustees, along with their father's ex-girlfriend Anjani Thomas—who also happens to be Kory's ex-wife. In their motion, the Cohen children say that after their father died, Kory replaced that page with a page that appointed Kory as the trust's primary trustee, which Variety notes would be a felony. Backing up their claim, they say, is a deposition by Kory's own attorney, Reeve Chudd, in which he admits that he swapped the pages, calling it a "horrible mistake on my part."

The Cohen children also claim Kory wrongfully entered into business deals on behalf of the trust without their OK; didn't give them relevant info on those agreements; and declined to transfer assets worth tens of millions of dollars out of the trust to their own trusts, "in order to continue to wrongfully enrich himself," per the motion. In past court papers cited by the New York Post, Adam and Lorca Cohen said their father "came to appreciate in his waning days that he had made a grave error by allowing Kory to insinuate himself into Leonard's affairs and take control over virtually every aspect of Leonard's finances and legacy." Kory has previously blamed a "scrivener's error" for the paperwork discrepancies, and claimed his work as the trust's manager has made Adam and Lorca Cohen "enormously wealthy." A trial in the case is set for March 29. (More Leonard Cohen stories.)