Manuela Herzer Sues Sumner Redstone to Reclaim Carlyle Hotel Apartment

By Gene Maddaus

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Manuela Herzer, the former companion of Viacom mogul Sumner Redstone, has filed two new lawsuits in an effort to reclaim possession of an apartment in the Carlyle Hotel.

Herzer has been engaged in litigation against Redstone and his daughter, Shari Redstone, ever since she was evicted from Redstone’s home in Los Angeles in 2015. Herzer says that during the years that she and Redstone were together, they would stay in the Carlyle apartment whenever they were in New York. The apartment was owned by National Amusements, the parent company of Viacom and CBS, but according to Herzer, Redstone decided to buy it for her in 2014 for $3.75 million, and gave it to her as a gift.

Redstone sued Herzer in 2016 to retake possession of the apartment, and in October 2017, a New York court sided with him. Herzer lost an appeal in June, and was served with a notice to vacate the apartment. is now 95 and in poor health, and Herzer alleges that his daughter has been directing her father’s affairs since 2015, without his full awareness.

On Monday, Herzer sued Sumner Redstone in L.A. Superior Court in Santa Monica, alleging that she had been duped into signing away her right to the apartment in 2015. Herzer also filed a separate suit against Leah Bishop, the attorney at Loeb & Loeb who has served as the Redstones’ estate planner.

Herzer contends that Bishop asked her to sign an agreement in 2015 so that Sumner Redstone could avoid paying gift taxes on the apartment. She alleges that she did not realize that by signing the document, the gift would become revocable.

“In short, Ms. Herzer signed the Purported Agreement with the understanding that Sumner was buying the Carlyle Apartment for her outright, without any limitations,” her lawyers allege. “Had Ms. Herzer known that Bishop, Shari, and other lawyers purporting to represent Sumner’s interest would later rely upon the Purported Agreement to divest her of her ownership interest in the Carlyle Apartment, she never would have signed it and would have purchased the Carlyle Apartment herself.”

In July, a federal judge dismissed a RICO lawsuit in which Herzer alleged that Shari Redstone had conspired with her father’s nurses to throw her out of Sumner Redstone’s house and deprive her of her inheritance. Redstone is also fighting with Herzer in state court over his allegations that she swindled him into giving her tens of millions of dollars in gifts. A similar claim involving another ex-girlfriend, Sydney Holland, was settled in June.