Pursuits
Sumner Redstone Competency Trial Brings Soap Opera to Courtroom
- Control of Viacom, CBS holdings could depend on trial outcome
- Aging mogul's taped testimony won't be shown in open court
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Billionaire Sumner Redstone controls a media empire that still broadcasts soap operas like those from the dawn of TV. Starting Friday, the fading mogul’s own saga will spill out in a Los Angeles courtroom like one of those serial dramas: with spurned lovers, a contested will and questions of who’s in charge.
Redstone, 92, who controls Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp., is facing trial over whether he was mentally competent when he threw ex-girlfriend Manuela Herzer out of his home in October and removed her from overseeing his medical care. Besides exposing his frailty, including difficulty speaking and eating, the case will spotlight Redstone’s fraught relations with his family and the millions he’s lavished on women around him.