Features
CBGB Squabble Settled
Karen Kristol and Dana filed the lawsuit in 2007, claiming Lisa took advantage of Karen’s mental frailty to obtain rights to the CBGB name. Karen and Hilly divorced before the iconic New York club opened in 1973, but Karen remained an integral part of the venue throughout its history. She is credited with creating the CBGB & OMFUG logo, yelling at the early punk bands to keep them in line, tending bar, turning down the Ramones’ amplifiers when neighbors complained and fighting its 2006 closing, according to the Village Voice.
She also wholly owned the corporation that ran the club and she was the name on the liquor license. However, son Dana accuses his sister of taking advantage of the deteriorating mental acuity of their octogenarian mother, coercing Karen to sign away her rights to the corporation in 2005 and handing Hilly the business and the liquor license. Karen, who had suffered a slip-and-fall and a series of small strokes, claims she does not recall signing anything. The document wasn’t witnessed, according to the Voice.
When Hilly died in 2007, his will named Lisa co-executor of the estate.
Also discovered in Hilly’s will was his worth. Dana and Karen claim they believed CBGB’s was a losing proposition, and Karen actually worked pro bono for years because she believed Hilly had no money. Instead, Hilly was worth $3.5 million to $3.7 million, according to various reports, because of the hefty merchandising of the CBGB brand. A check of 2006 New Jersey property records showed that he bought a house in Asbury Park, N.J., for $600,000.
Karen was not included in the will and Dana was left $100,000 in a trust. The will could not be finalized until Dana signed off on it.
The recent settlement gave Dana and Karen little more than what they already had, according to the Voice. There was less than $1 million for the family to squabble about after state taxes and debtors took their portions.
Dana said the tipping point was a threat to place guardianship over Karen, which he regarded as “legal blackmail.”
“I was told they could actually put my mother in a hospital,” he said. “That’s why we felt we had to agree. … You never know what’s going to happen in a guardianship and I didn’t want that threat over my mother.”
The “threat” of guardianship was dropped at settlement, Dana said.
“My mother lived her whole life there,” Dana told the Voice. “The thing my mother did wrong was trust my father and sister. … That’s what mother did legally wrong. And that’s how she lost everything.”
Lisa Kristal Burgman did not return a call for comment, according to the Voice.
Please click here for the entire Village Voice article.