Kenneth Feld was sued by his sister, Karen, because she says his security guards beat and groped her as they forcibly removed her from a shiva service. He is suing her for trespassing.
(Chris O’Meara/ Associated Press/ File 2007)
Circus heirs’ feud in court
Dueling suits stem from aunt’s memorial service
Kenneth Feld was sued by his sister, Karen, because she says his security guards beat and groped her as they forcibly removed her from a shiva service. He is suing her for trespassing.
(Chris O’Meara/ Associated Press/ File 2007)
WASHINGTON — The scions of the family entertainment empire built on the Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey circus brought their decades-old feud into a federal courtroom yesterday and immediately impugned each other’s motives during a 2007 memorial service for the woman who reared them.
Karen Feld is suing her brother for $110 million of his fortune because she says his security guards beat and groped her as they forcibly removed her from their Aunt Shirley’s shiva service at the Washington penthouse where they grew up together. She says the assault at her brother’s direction exacerbated a brain injury and injured an arthritic knee, leading to surgery on both.
An attorney for Kenneth Feld, who now owns Feld Entertainment, responded that Karen Feld’s allegations are bogus and suggested she had more interest in grabbing their aunt’s jewelry than mourning her death. Attorney Matthew Kirtland said Feld desecrated the shiva by trying to sneak into a back bedroom, then exploding in a rage when her brother’s security guards tried to stop her. Kenneth Feld, who lives in Tampa, has countersued his sister for trespassing.
“Karen Feld lives in a fantasy land,’’ Kirtland told the eight jurors and one alternate in opening arguments.
This proceeding is the culmination of a long-running and bitter estrangement between the Feld siblings, who sat just a few feet apart in the courtroom avoiding each other’s gaze. They are the only children of Irvin Feld, who bought the circus in 1967 and died in 1984, passing the company to his son.
“This is a case where a chosen son took brutal advantage of a neglected daughter,’’ said Karen Feld’s attorney, Steven Oster. “His hostility toward his sister has been the defining part of his relationship toward her.’’
Oster said the hostility stems from a 1990 article in a now-defunct business magazine about the Feld family that quoted Karen Feld and publicly exposed Irvin Feld’s homosexual affairs and his wife’s suicide. Oster told jurors his client’s suit may seem like a “case amongst people who have it all,’’ but he described a tragic childhood for Karen Feld in which she was physically abused by both parents, brought up by her aunt and uncle after her mother’s death, and then virtually cut out of her father’s will.
Kirtland said the will split the family after Feld successfully sued her brother and their aunt to get more of the inheritance. He said while Kenneth Feld, his wife, and three daughters remained close to the aunt after that suit, the family no longer associated with Karen Feld.
But Kirtland said Kenneth Feld still let his sister know when their aunt was dying and told her she was welcome to mourn with them.
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