Aging oil tycoon Jack Grynberg is locked in a legal battle with his family over control of his billion-dollar empire, court documents have revealed.
The 85-year-old is battling his wife and three children’s attempts to seize the family fortune over claims that he is ‘erratic’ and has ‘questionable judgement’, a Monday report in the Denver Post revealed.
Grynberg, who was born in Poland, has claimed that he joined resistance fighters at age 12 and battled Nazis in the forests of Belarus.
He built his fortune partially by suing other oil companies on behalf of the federal government under laws that allow whistle-blowers to take a cut of money recovered from fraudsters.
The tycoon’s wife, Celeste, 81, and their three children – Rachel, 56, Stephen, 54, and Miriam, 52 – filed suit against him last year in a play for control over his empire.
The family legal battle centers on three companies Grynberg created: Gadeco, Pricaspian, and RSM, which in all hold about $230 million in cash reserves and drilling rights that are valued in the billions.
Aging Denver oil tycoon Jack Grynberg is locked in a legal battle with his family over control of his billion-dollar empire
The tycoon’s wife, Celeste, 81, (left) and their three children – Rachel, 56, Stephen, 54, (right) and Miriam, 52 – filed suit against him last year in a play for control over his empire
The three companies are owned by the children, but given under the condition, Grynberg claims, that he be allowed to operate them until the day he dies.
The wife and children contend that Grynberg lacks the capacity to continue running the businesses.
‘In recent years, Jack’s increasingly questionable judgment and erratic decision-making have caused Jack’s wife and children mounting concern,’ court papers filed by the family state.
‘Jack’s words… reveal a troubling absence of ethical business judgment’ and his reckless business decisions cost them millions, the family said in the filings.
The family claim Grynberg bought a $600,000 house for his secretary with corporate funds.
They also say he refused to pay an IRS bill of $135million last year, and is running up an interest tab of $20,000 a day on the unpaid bill.
Grynberg was charged with sexual assault in a groping claim last year, but the charge was dropped for lack of evidence
Although it’s unknown what relation, if any, it has to the civil legal battle, Grynberg was briefly criminally charged with felony sexual contact by force in December, after a former employee told police that he put his hand inside her shirt and bra and grabbed her breast.
Prosecutors later dropped the charge due to lack of evidence.
Grynberg, in an affidavit, blasted ‘the complete ingratitude of my children whom I have supported through (their) entire lives, including providing gifts of interests in companies which have earned more than a billion dollars solely through my efforts.’
His daughter, Miriam, ‘has not worked a day in her life,’ the affidavit says, while his other children, Rachel and Stephen, ‘have wasted the education which I provided.’
‘Rachel dabbles in art in Denver and Stephen pretends to be a film maker in Los Angeles,’ Grynberg’s affidavit says. ‘Neither do anything productive. … I have decided enough is enough… They have no ability to manage these companies.’
Stephen Grynberg recently directed a documentary about mountaineer Ruedi Beglinger, ‘A Life Ascending,’ and gained critical acclaim for his 1998 film ‘Love From Ground Zero’.
Celeste and Jack Grynberg separated shortly after the suit was filed, and now live separately
‘He has devoted himself to fighting dishonest and improper practices by some of the world’s major energy companies in various (US) and international courts and tribunals,’ according to papers filed by Grynberg’s lawyers.
The court papers say Grynberg made his fortune by ‘ruling with an iron fist’, while his wife and children ‘did literally nothing to create this wealth.’
Celeste and Jack Grynberg separated shortly after the suit was filed, and now live in separate homes.
The suit is set to go to a jury trial sometime in the next month.
‘It’s sad; he’s given them all this money and they’re trying to take it all from him and, in the last few years of his life, he can’t do what he loves to do,’ Grynberg’s lawyer Greg Tamkin told the Post.
‘For him it’s not about the money. For them, it is.’