Tony Bennett‘s daughters, Johanna and Antonia Bennett, have continued their legal battle against their older brother, Danny Bennett, with a new lawsuit filed against him in New York State Court, alleging mismanagement of family finances following their father’s death in 2023.
“Tony maintained a loving and devoted relationship with all of his children and his estate plan expressly provides that all four children be treated equally, including through provisions to equalize each child based on benefits Tony conferred on them during his life,” they claim in the suit. “Since Tony’s 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.”
About 45 years ago, Danny Bennett began managing his father’s career, and played a key role in his Nineties comeback and the many lucrative years that followed. But his sisters are alleging that he “abused the trust, confidence, and authority that Tony vested in him by engaging in self-dealing transactions for his own financial gain in breach of his fiduciary duties.” (Danny Bennett and Bennett’s attorneys did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment.)
The 38-page lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, states that at the time of Tony’s death in 2022, his assets were valued at $12 million. “Johanna and Antonia have significant concerns regarding the purported low value of Tony’s reported assets and the apparent diminution in Tony’s assets as of his date of death,” the lawsuit claims. “On information and belief, Tony’s lifetime earnings exceeded $100,000,000, including substantial earnings during the final ten years of Tony’s career. Johanna and Antonia have not received any credible explanation about what happened to Tony’s substantial lifetime earnings prior to his death.”
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They also allege that Danny took two loans from the family trust totaling $1.2 million in 2020 without alerting his sisters, and later sold Tony’s name and likeness rights and the royalty stream to his music to Iconoclast. “Johanna and Antonia had little or no knowledge of the Iconoclast deal at the time it occurred,” the suit states, “were given no indication or information that such a deal was even being discussed prior to its occurrence, and still do not have complete information about the net proceeds of the transaction or the circumstances under which the sale was completed.”
Johanna and Antonia also claim that their brother made it impossible for them to acquire personal artifacts from their father’s estate, and wouldn’t even let them into his apartment for an extended period of time after he died.
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“Johanna and Antonia have exhausted all other reasonable options to protect their father’s wishes,” the suit states, “and they bring this action to require Danny to disclose and account for his self-interested and conflicted conduct and breaches of fiduciary duties, to safeguard assets that still exist, and to ensure the balance amongst the four siblings that Tony intended.”