Josh Gotlib, answering allegations that he defrauded his partner’s widow out of her inheritance, said her “naive … victim” act doesn’t add up.
The head of Black Spruce Management filed a response this week to a December lawsuit in which Natalia Legg, the widow of Oliver Legg, alleged Gotlib siphoned funds and transferred businesses out of her husband’s trust.
“The complaint against Mr. Gotlib is a work of fiction,” Golib’s attorney Todd Soloway said in a statement.
Legg’s allegation, her attorney Nathan Goralnik said by email, is that “Mr. Gotlib took valuable assets from a trust that was created for the benefit of his business partner’s widow and daughter.”
The trust contained Oliver Legg’s 50 percent ownership interest in investment firm Black Spruce Properties, asset manager Black Spruce Management and Nieuw Amsterdam Property Management. Oliver Legg named Gotlib its trustee before dying in 2015 from brain cancer.
The widow’s lawsuit claims the scheme began that year but that she was none-the-wiser until 2022. Gotlib says Legg’s story is full of holes.
In her initial complaint, Legg described meeting with “accountants and lawyers in Switzerland” regarding her husband’s estate after his funeral.
But in March, Legg amended her complaint, Gotlib noted, “de-emphasizing the involvement of her professional advisers” and alleging Gotlib was her only resource for information on her husband’s trust.
Gotlib seized on the revision to argue that Legg’s “eyes have apparently opened to the fact that she could not credibly claim to have been ‘defrauded’ until 2022.”
Legg claims Gotlib “manipulated” her into transferring the trust’s ownership interest in Black Spruce Management and Nieuw Amsterdam to himself, “days after Oliver’s funeral.” Gotlib told her Black Spruce was “losing money,” her complaint details.
Legg alleged Gotlib invited her over for dinner and drinks on May 27, 2015, and “seizing on Natalia’s vulnerability, Gotlib tricked Natalia into quickly signing the transfer agreements.”
But Legg omitted that she touched base with the trust’s lawyers on May 26 to discuss the transfer, according to Gotlib. He adds that she could not have signed the transfer agreement at the dinner because the attorneys didn’t draft it until May 28.
The Black Spruce principal also rebuffs Legg’s claim that he promised fees from Black Spruce Management would go to the trust — although the trust agreement supports her contention, exhibits show — and that he would take care of loans sponsored by Black Spruce Properties. A separate trust created by Oliver Legg’s father, known as the Magnolia Trust, had supplied that debt.
Legg alleges Gotlib took management fees for himself and serviced the Magnolia loans with money from his one-time partner’s trust.
Gotlib’s response: Legg was notified that the trust would receive distributions from Black Spruce Properties and that the investment firm would make the payments on the Magnolia Loans.
Attorneys representing Gotlib are now gunning to arbitrate Legg’s claims.
“Ms. Legg’s claims are demonstrably false and we are focused on proving the truth in an appropriate forum,” Gotlib’s lawyer Soloway said.
Legg, who removed Gotlib as trustee in February, wants damages for his “deceit, bad faith and self-dealing.” She also wants the transfer agreements rescinded and Gotlib’s ownership interest in Black Spruce Management and Nieuw Management returned to the trust, according to her March complaint.
“We intend to recover those assets and hold Mr. Gotlib accountable,” Legg’s attorney declared.\
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