Jody Klein, son of the former Beatles and Rolling Stones manager Allen Klein, has won a battle against his father’s live-in girlfriend, Iris Keitel, over $1 million worth of artwork she claims was gifted to her by her late partner.
Klein and Keitel have been battling it out in court for possession of the works since 2013.
After the elder Klein’s death in 2009, Keitel allegedly made off with 15 pieces of artwork and furniture from their shared apartment, including a $120,000 Jeanne Rij-Rousseau painting, a Celine Lepage bronze sculpture, a $4,400 Edouard Bouquet desk lamp, and a 19th century $3,800 Chinese cypress wood bench.
Page Six reports that despite Keitel’s efforts to gain access to Klein’s gift tax receipts to prove that he often made major gifts to her and others, the judge ruled there was “no correlation.”
“Even if she were able to establish, for example, that decedent gifted 90 percent of his estate to others, that fact would be useless in helping her prove decedent gifted anything to her,” Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Nora Anderson explained.
Jody Klein claims his father “didn’t give gifts.”
Klein’s record company ABKCO, which he acquired from his father, also brought a suit against Keitel in 2012, claiming she had falsely taken possession of the John Lennon drawing Let’s Have a Dream.
Despite the fact that she lived with Allen Klein in an apartment on the Upper East Side for over 30 years, Keitel was also notably absent from Klein’s will, which left the bulk of his estate to his estranged wife and his three children.