A bitter feud is reheating inside a storied New York family dynasty – as an 80-year-old heiress has sued her daughters and brother, alleging they cut off her monthly six-figure checks and booted her from the family trusts, The Post has learned.
Constance Milstein – granddaughter of late family patriarch Morris Milstein who also goes by “Connie” – claimed in court documents that her brother Philip L. Milstein and daughters Abigail Black Elbaum and Joanna M. Milstein are improperly attempting to seize $2.5 million in her name and her monthly payments.
The wealthy socialite – who once paid a $5,000 fine for allegedly bribing homeless people to vote for Al Gore, which her spokesman said at the time was a misunderstanding – alleged that family members took advantage of her time spent as the US ambassador to Malta under the Biden administration to wrest away control of her rights and assets.
A counterfiling from her family members seeking to dismiss the lawsuit alleges that the trust was actually created “for the express primary benefit of Connie’s two children,” and that Connie is “far from cash poor” – spending approximately $23.5 million over the past few years.
“It is regrettable that a private family matter has come to litigation,” a spokesperson for Philip and his family told The Post. “The petition itself is full of hyperbole and innuendo but has no merit and lacks any legal or factual basis.”
Attorneys for Constance argued that the counterfiling was “a pathetic attempt at distraction” and doubled down on claims that Philip and Abigail were attempting to “bludgeon [Connie] in settlement negotiations.”
Among America’s richest families with an estimated $3.1 billion in assets, the latest generation of Milsteins inherited their wealth from patriarch Morris’ sons Seymour and Paul, who were known to kiss goodbye and refer to one another fondly as “brother.”
But the two were torn apart by a nasty succession struggle over whose son should be in charge of the business – one that was ultimately settled in 2003, after Seymour’s death in 2001. Though the brothers’ fortune was split, a new family feud is consuming the third generation.
In the summer of 2025, Peter Grossman and James Sligar, co-trustees of a trust in Seymour’s widow Vivian Milstein’s name, abruptly told Connie that they had “decided to cease making” what had been regular monthly distributions of $125,000 to her from one of the trusts, the petition alleged.
Both men knew that Connie relied on the six-figure payments to fund her lifestyle and were using it as a pressure tactic to force her back to the table in settlement talks with Philip and her daughters, according to the petition.
“Given their intimate familiarity with Connie’s finances – and, in particular, her lack of liquidity – the Faithless Fiduciaries were well aware that Connie relied on those distributions to be able to pay her expenses,” her lawyers wrote.
Connie is suing in New York County Supreme Court to replace Grossman and Sligar, who she alleges have been plotting against her with her estranged brother Philip and her own two daughters.
“Although Abigail and Joanna are Connie’s daughters, they are also her adversaries – allied with Connie’s brother, Philip L. Milstein, against her – in long-running disputes regarding the Milstein family’s multi-billion-dollar real-estate business,” her lawyers wrote in a petition.
Around the same time, Philip also issued an abrupt drawdown notice demanding that Connie’s trust contribute $2.5 million to the family business by September 2025 – another attempt to force his sister’s hand in settlement talks, according to her lawyers.
Those settlement talks concern vague family disputes over their interests in various businesses, according to public court documents.
A memorandum of law filed by Grossman and Sligar argued that the power to remove and replace trustees was rightly given to Abby and Joanna, the primary beneficiaries – not Connie, who was merely a “discretionary beneficiary” for that trust and had other trusts of her own. A spokesperson for Philip declined to comment on why the daughters sought to stop Connie’s payments.
“Connie’s papers paint a picture of Connie as a devoted and honorable public servant betrayed by ‘faithless’ fiduciaries bound and determined to take advantage of her for their own benefit,” lawyers for Grossman and Sligar wrote.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” the lawyers wrote, adding that Connie’s ideas that they leveraged her lack of liquidity “are a diversion not based in reality” – and taking aim at her “profligate spending habits.”
The memo alleges that Connie spent $7 million on a Montreal residence, over $8 million on two New Hampshire homes, over $5 million on jewelry and other personal items and $3 million on an annual private aviation contract over just a few years. She was also able to readily liquidate her assets, recently auctioning off some jewelry for $7.5 million, they alleged.
Abigail, Joanna, Sligar and Grossman did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
Seymour and Paul had taken over the flooring business from their father Morris and transformed it into a real-estate empire, taking risky bets to revitalize NYC neighborhoods like Times Square and East Harlem. They also bought Emigrant Bank, the city’s oldest savings bank, for $90 million in the 1980s.
The Milstein family has developed 50,000 apartments, 8,000 hotel rooms and 20 million square feet of office space, according to Forbes. They own iconic buildings like One Lincoln Plaza and The Jefferson, a historic DC hotel.
Their contributions have funded the Milstein Hall of Ocean Life at the American Museum of Natural History, the Vivian and Seymour Milstein Family Heart Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace at the Metropolitan Opera.
Paul – who made it onto former President Nixon’s enemies list – reportedly wanted his son Howard to control the future of the business, while Seymour instead pushed to split the fortune into two smaller businesses.
Howard reportedly had a more brash, business-like personality, while Seymour’s eldest son, Philip, had a quieter, more polished presence – and their fathers could not agree over who should take the helm.
The fight turned so brutal that the Milstein brothers barely spoke to one another. In 1999, Philip sued his cousins Howard and Edward, another son of Paul’s, over their management of Douglas Elliman. Paul and Howard sued to remove Philip as head of Emigrant in 2000, alleging he had assumed “dictatorial control” of the family’s businesses.
Howard ultimately kept control of Milford Management and Milstein Properties. Philip, meanwhile, co-founded Ogden Cap Properties with his sister, Connie, and Connie’s daughter, Abigail, to manage their share of the family holdings.
The Ogden business is overseen by Grossman, who “has intimate knowledge of each family member’s finances,” and Sligar’s law firm, Milbank LLP, had “represented Connie as her trust-and-estate planning counsel for years,” they added.
Connie had hinted at a tense relationship with her siblings. As a panelist speaking to women in real estate years ago, she said, “It’s difficult to work in a family business. In order to get along, you have to go along. You sometimes have to put your sensitivities behind you and smile a lot.”
It’s unclear why the Park Avenue philanthropist – who previously lived in a Georgetown mansion bought by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent – might have had a falling out with her daughters.
Her youngest daughter, Joanna, at one point worked as an art historian in Florence and praised her mother for taking her to museums around the world as a child, including the Louvre when she was just eight. More recently, she’s been publishing short stories and poems in digital journals.
Connie’s daughter Abigail – a co-founder and principal at Ogden who started her banking career at JPMorgan – also sits on the board of trustees at Columbia University.