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Hendrix family feud unfolds
30/06/2004 12:58 - (SA)
Seattle - Feuding relatives of 1960s rock legend Jimi Hendrix were on Tuesday fighting a bitter courtroom battle for control of the guitarist's multi-million-dollar estate.
Leon Hendrix, the brother of the iconic musician who died in 1970, is suing his estate claiming that his adopted step-sister, Janie, unfairly influenced their late father into cutting Leon out of his will.
A complex trial that pits numerous members of Hendrix's family against each other in the struggle for control of the estate that Leon Hendrix's camp says is worth between $80m and $120m, began on Monday in the northwestern US city of Seattle.
The father, Al Hendrix, who died in 2002, had inherited his late son's estate when Jimi died without a will after a drug overdose.
"We want Al's true intent and will to come forward.
We don't want Janie's version of Al's will to be enforced," Leon Hendrix's business manager Craig Diefenback said.
"Leon was always in Al's will, up until the last moment in 1997. Janie's attorneys wrote Leon out of the will. Essentially Janie fired Al's estate attorneys and had her own attorneys rewrite Al's will.
Undue influence involved
"There was major undue influence and fraud involved in that process and we're happy that we have our day in court and the facts will bare out that this was indeed Janie's will and not Al Hendrix's will," he said.
The trial focuses on control of cash earned from Hendrix's posthumous record releases, royalties and rights to a range of Hendrix merchandise, all of which reportedly generates several million dollars a year.
Musician Leon Hendrix, 56, and around 14 other members of his family have accused Janie, 43, of manipulating her father into appointing her to run the multiple trusts, partnerships and companies that make up the Hendrix estate.
The lawsuit claims that Janie Hendrix then used the estate to her personal benefit while denying other beneficiaries their share.
Leon Hendrix, who has long lived in his brother's shadow, wants the court in his suit to declare his father's will and trust invalid and for new documents to be written installing him as an heir to his brother's estate.
Janie runs the estate
Janie Hendrix - who was adopted by Al Hendrix and her mother June Jinka in 1968 - runs the estate with her cousin Robert and claims she helped her father regain the rights to his son's music and then helped manage the disorganised and debt-ridden estate back to financial health.
In opening statements at the trial, expected to last at least six weeks, Janie Hendrix's lawyer, John Wilson, dismissed accusations that she bullied her father into giving her control of the estate.
"Al Hendrix never wanted Leon Hendrix to be involved in this business," Wilson told the court adding that the patriarch had intended to give control to the people he trusted - Janie and Robert.
He also dismissed claims by Leon Hendrix and other relatives, who are attempting in a separate suit to dislodge Janie and Robert from running the estate, that the pair had improperly spent millions of dollars of estate money.
The court heard that Janie spent lavishly on herself with company money, including bonuses, home loans, cars and trips to luxury spas.
In the space of a few years, she spent $1.7m on personal expenses with her corporate credit card, ringing up $45 000 in just one month, Leon Hendrix's lawyer Robert Curran alleged.
"Janie lived a very good life, but other beneficiaries haven't seen a dime," he told the court.
Some reports have estimated the total value of Jimi Hendrix legacy at between $100m and $240m.
Bob Merlis of Experience Hendrix LLC, the firm set up in 1995 to market Hendrix's legacy, said Janie's leadership had earned the estate $45m in eight years, more than the previous estate management had earned in more than 20.
"We've turned Jimi Hendrix into the fifth largest earner of any posthumous recording artist right after Elvis (Presley), John Lennon, George Harrison and Bob Marley. That's not bad," 34 years after his death, he said.
- AFP
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South Africa
