Trustees accuse Feinstein’s daughter of creating a ‘media spectacle’

Attorneys for executors of a trust created by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s late husband are accusing the senator’s daughter, Katherine Feinstein, of creating a “media spectacle,” meant to draw attention away from Katherine’s attempts to gain control of assets she has no legal right to.

Katherine Feinstein is suing to become the sole executor of the trust, which has been controlled by longtime associates of the senator’s late husband, Richard Blum, since his death last year. Katherine has claimed in court filings that the current executors, Marc Scholvinck and Michael Klein, have refused to distribute money from the trust to help Dianne Feinstein pay for medical bills she incurred after complications from a shingles diagnosis earlier this year. In an August filing, Katherine suggested that the trustees’ actions have amounted to elder abuse against the senator. 

However, in a document filed with the court Wednesday, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, attorneys for Scholvinck and Klein argued that Katherine’s claims about her mother’s medical bills are a ruse meant to help her gain control of a trust that Blum, who was reportedly a billionaire at the time of his death, had created to benefit the senator; the trust will pass to his three biological children after she dies. (The Chronicle and SFGATE are both owned by Hearst but have separate newsrooms.) Katherine, Dianne’s daughter from an earlier marriage, is not a named beneficiary of the trust. If she were to become an executor, she would be entitled to unspecified compensation, according to the trust’s organization documents.

In Wednesday’s court filing, attorneys for Scholvinck and Klein called Katherine’s claims “utterly irrelevant,” arguing that they were made to whip up a “media spectacle” that distracts “from the only relevant inquiry,” referring to the question of who controls the trust. The filing says that Scholvinck and Klein have “never denied” the senator’s requests for money and have instead been “analyzing Senator Feinstein’s other sources of income and assets to determine whether they can make such a distribution.” 

Katherine reportedly has limited power of attorney over Dianne and has claimed in legal filings to be proceeding with the dispute over the trust on her mother’s behalf. In the initial complaint, filed in July, she claimed that Scholvinck and Klein had been improperly appointed as executors of the trust, and she argued that she should replace them at the helm.

Attorneys for Scholvinck and Klein disputed that claim in Wednesday’s court filing, saying that the two men were appointed co-trustees by George Pavlov, who had been named the acting trustee in 2002. They argued that the original agreement allows acting trustees to name their successor or successors, making the appointments of Scholvinck and Klein legitimate. 

This case is just one of several lawsuits embroiling the Feinstein-Blum clan, with Katherine and the senator’s three stepchildren squabbling over control of the senator’s significant assets as public concerns grow over the legislator’s reported mental and physical decline.  

A representative for Dianne Feinstein’s office told SFGATE that the issue is a “private legal matter” and said the senator had no comment. Attorneys for Scholvinck and Klein did not return a request for comment from SFGATE in time for publication.

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Sept. 5, 2023.