Leonard Cohen's heirs accuse singer's former manager, lawyers of forgery

Children of the late Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen who are also his heirs, have accused the singer's former manager and his legal representatives of  forgery.

48-year-old Lorca and 50-year-old Adam Cohen have filed a motion to remove the aforementioned from the role of trustee.

Variety reports that Cohen’s children accused Robert Kory along with his legal representatives of forgery of Cohen’s signed trust; valued at $48m.

The motion includes an extract of a statement filed by the Cohens’ attorney Adam Streisand in which Kory’s former attorney Reeve Chudd admits to removing a page from Cohen’s signed trust and exchanging it with one that designates Kory as the primary trustee of Cohen’s trust.

In the deposition, Chudd is asked: “And if you take a look at the next page, PET 1-28, you see your notarisation of Leonard Cohen’s signatures, right?” to which he replies, “Yes,” Variety reports.

“You did not notarise Leonard Cohen’s signatures to this version of the restatement of the Leonard Cohen family trust, right?” Chudd is then asked.

“Yes. It was a horrible mistake on my part to create this document,” he responds.

Chudd then admits that he physically created the document after Cohen died in 2016 at 82 years old. “I substituted pages in the original document,” he said.

The motion states: “There is no valid instrument by Leonard designating Kory to serve in that capacity. Since Leonard’s death in 2016, Kory has been holding himself out as trustee and exercising control over the trust and its assets solely on the basis of forgery and fraud.”

The motion calls for the removal of Kory from the trustee role. The motion is also requesting the court to require Kory to turn over Cohen’s estate’s assets, as well as return the money that he made in that role.