Leonard Cohen’s children in battle over estate

Leonard Cohen died back in 2016, but now his family is in a battle over his estate. The New York Post reports Cohen’s daughter, Lorca, and son, Adam, have spent over a year trying to remove attorney Robert Kory as a trustee of the Leonard Cohen Family Trust. Cohen himself appointed Kory as trustee, overseeing the singer’s vast archives of music, poetry, novels and more, said to be valued at over $48 million.

According to the court papers, Cohen’s adult children claim the singer “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.” The Cohen kids insist Kory isn’t keeping them in the loop about ways he’s trying to make money from the estate. They are also unhappy Kory hired his son to archive Cohen’s vast personal documents.

A lawyer hired by Adam also claims they have proof documents from 2005 giving Kory control of Cohen’s legacy were forged in order to “fleece the estate of millions of dollars and steal the Hall of Famer’s legacy from his own children.” Lawyer Adam Streisand insists there are two versions of the documents, and the “one and only true version” gives the singer’s children and Anjani Thomas, Cohen’s former lover who happens to be Kory’s ex-wife, control of the Trust. They claim when Cohen died the original was “swapped out,” designating Kory as trustee.

But Kory insists he didn’t do anything wrong, and does all he can to keep Lorca and Adam in the loop on Trust matters. He describes the confusion over the documents as “a scrivener’s error.”