Marvel comics icon Stan Lee has filed a lawsuit against former manager Jerardo Olivarez alleging fraud, financial abuse of an elder, conversion and misappropriation of his name and likeness.
In a complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, Olivarez is accused of being one of many “unscrupulous businessmen, sycophants and opportunists” who sought to take advantage of Lee following the July death of his wife, Joan.
The lawsuit alleges that Olivarez — a former business associate of Lee’s daughter Joan “J.C.” Lee — manipulated Lee into ousting his “banker of 26 years” and his longtime lawyer, signing a power of attorney to control Lee’s assets, loaning $300,000 to a fake nonprofit and buying an $850,000 West Hollywood condo. Olivarez is also accused in the lawsuit of taking nearly $1.4 million from Lee’s accounts “through a series of complicated wire-transfers all initiated” by him and orchestrating a scheme to steal Lee’s blood for use as a “merchandising item.”
The lawsuit follows a report published last week by the Hollywood Reporter detailing the battle over the 95-year-old Lee’s estate. The story revealed Lee’s situation, which also involves Olivarez, as “increasingly toxic and combative … involving broken alliances, abrupt expulsions and allegations of elder abuse.”
After that report, but before the lawsuit was filed, a video was released showing Lee denying the allegations in the report and threatening to sue anybody reporting he was being taken advantage of or mistreated.
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