Jeno Paulucci heirs fight over $150 million
State Sen. David Simmons is right in the middle
Portrait of Jeno Paulucci, founder of Michelina's Inc… (Julie Fletcher, Orlando…)
SANFORD — In October 2011, Jeno Paulucci — frozen-pizza magnate, founder of Chun King Foods and the father of Heathrow — was 93 years old, legally blind and near death in the intensive-care unit of a Minnesota hospital.
According to court pleadings, he was heavily medicated, suffering from congestive heart failure and kidney disease and — because doctors didn't want to cross him — was allowed to drink Fernet, an Italian liquor, because his sleep and pain medication didn't always work.
According to court pleadings, he was heavily medicated, suffering from congestive heart failure and kidney disease and — because doctors didn't want to cross him — was allowed to drink Fernet, an Italian liquor, because his sleep and pain medication didn't always work.
During that hospital stay, Paulucci signed a legal document that transferred control of much of his family's $150 million estate from his longtime attorneys in Minnesota to two longtime confidants in Central Florida.
One of those confidants is Florida state Sen. David Simmons, an Orlando lawyer who handled dozens of legal disputes for Paulucci during 20 years.
Paulucci's signature in that Duluth hospital room has triggered a legal war in Sanford involving the food magnate's three children, four grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and other beneficiaries.
His two oldest children allege in court documents that Simmons and co-trustee Larry W. Nelson, the lawyer-businessman who managed Paulucci's ventures from Sanford for 30 years, put together a sweetheart deal for themselves, one that allows them to be paid millions of dollars to manage the estate, and then got Paulucci to sign it when he was mentally incapacitated.
Paulucci died seven weeks later, on Nov. 24, 2011.
Those two oldest children, Cynthia Selton, 58, of Longwood, and Michael J. "Mick" Paulucci, 65, of Palm Coast, are asking Circuit Judge Alan Dickey to remove Simmons and Nelson as trustees and to throw out the trust agreement.
Simmons and Nelson are fighting back. They were in Florida when Paulucci signed the document, according to court records, and it was drafted by someone else: a Minneapolis lawyer.
And memos Paulucci signed more than a year and a half before he died make clear that by March 2010 he had selected them as trustees.
"We've done nothing improper or inappropriate and are simply trying to administer the trusts as Jeno and [his wife] Lois desired," Simmons said.
Lois Mae Paulucci, Jeno's wife of 64 years, died four days before him, also in Minnesota. She was 89.
Food, development fortune
Jeno Paulucci was one of the most prominent, colorful and successful food manufacturers in the country, and parlayed the millions he made in that industry into a real-estate fortune in Seminole County.
He was the founding developer of Heathrow, once the most prestigious gated community in Central Florida, with an adjoining business park at Interstate 4 and Lake Mary Boulevard that includes corporate headquarters for AAA.
One of those confidants is Florida state Sen. David Simmons, an Orlando lawyer who handled dozens of legal disputes for Paulucci during 20 years.
Paulucci's signature in that Duluth hospital room has triggered a legal war in Sanford involving the food magnate's three children, four grandchildren, 10 great-grandchildren and other beneficiaries.
His two oldest children allege in court documents that Simmons and co-trustee Larry W. Nelson, the lawyer-businessman who managed Paulucci's ventures from Sanford for 30 years, put together a sweetheart deal for themselves, one that allows them to be paid millions of dollars to manage the estate, and then got Paulucci to sign it when he was mentally incapacitated.
Paulucci died seven weeks later, on Nov. 24, 2011.
Those two oldest children, Cynthia Selton, 58, of Longwood, and Michael J. "Mick" Paulucci, 65, of Palm Coast, are asking Circuit Judge Alan Dickey to remove Simmons and Nelson as trustees and to throw out the trust agreement.
Simmons and Nelson are fighting back. They were in Florida when Paulucci signed the document, according to court records, and it was drafted by someone else: a Minneapolis lawyer.
And memos Paulucci signed more than a year and a half before he died make clear that by March 2010 he had selected them as trustees.
"We've done nothing improper or inappropriate and are simply trying to administer the trusts as Jeno and [his wife] Lois desired," Simmons said.
Lois Mae Paulucci, Jeno's wife of 64 years, died four days before him, also in Minnesota. She was 89.
Food, development fortune
Jeno Paulucci was one of the most prominent, colorful and successful food manufacturers in the country, and parlayed the millions he made in that industry into a real-estate fortune in Seminole County.
He was the founding developer of Heathrow, once the most prestigious gated community in Central Florida, with an adjoining business park at Interstate 4 and Lake Mary Boulevard that includes corporate headquarters for AAA.
He spent part of the year in Minnesota, where he grew up, but much of it in Sanford, where he and Lois lived in a rambling but unspectacular home on Washington Avenue.
He was an abrasive, mercurial man, associates say, and changed his mind often about what should happen to his riches once he was dead. The trust in dispute is one he amended 13 times, three times during the last year of his life.
For many years, it excluded his youngest daughter, Gina Paulucci, 52, of Wyzata, Minn. But after he sued her in 2005 and she countersued, they reconciled, and he added her back as a beneficiary, court records show.
She is the sole child not fighting to oust Simmons and Nelson as trustees.
Legal avalanche
The lawsuit against Simmons and Nelson is just one of many legal battles the Paulucci family is now fighting over inheritance in Seminole County courts.
The 16 lawsuits filed so far outnumber the county's 10 circuit judges. Most have been filed in the past six weeks and do not involve Simmons and Nelson.
In general, they target the Minnesota law office — Dorsey & Whitney LLP — that created Jeno and Lois Paulucci's individual trusts, and allege wrongdoing related to other, smaller trusts the Pauluccis set up years ago.
George Eck, manager of the firm's Minneapolis office and a defendant in 14 of the 16 suits, did not return phone calls.
Lois Paulucci had her own trust fund, valued at about $20 million, according to attorneys, and it, too, is part of the legal quagmire. The same two children suing to oust Simmons and Nelson as trustees of Jeno Paulucci's trust are making the same request in the case of their mother.
Lois Paulucci signed it 40 days before she died, transferring control to Simmons and Nelson. On the day she signed, her physician found her incompetent, according to pleadings filed by Selton and Mick Paulucci.
How much in fees?
Terry Young, an attorney for Simmons and Nelson, says Jeno Paulucci was competent when he signed the trust document in October 2011. A physician who examined him that day says so, according to Young.
As to whether Simmons and Nelson will now be able to collect "exorbitant" fees, as the suit alleges, it is less clear.
He was an abrasive, mercurial man, associates say, and changed his mind often about what should happen to his riches once he was dead. The trust in dispute is one he amended 13 times, three times during the last year of his life.
For many years, it excluded his youngest daughter, Gina Paulucci, 52, of Wyzata, Minn. But after he sued her in 2005 and she countersued, they reconciled, and he added her back as a beneficiary, court records show.
She is the sole child not fighting to oust Simmons and Nelson as trustees.
Legal avalanche
The lawsuit against Simmons and Nelson is just one of many legal battles the Paulucci family is now fighting over inheritance in Seminole County courts.
The 16 lawsuits filed so far outnumber the county's 10 circuit judges. Most have been filed in the past six weeks and do not involve Simmons and Nelson.
In general, they target the Minnesota law office — Dorsey & Whitney LLP — that created Jeno and Lois Paulucci's individual trusts, and allege wrongdoing related to other, smaller trusts the Pauluccis set up years ago.
George Eck, manager of the firm's Minneapolis office and a defendant in 14 of the 16 suits, did not return phone calls.
Lois Paulucci had her own trust fund, valued at about $20 million, according to attorneys, and it, too, is part of the legal quagmire. The same two children suing to oust Simmons and Nelson as trustees of Jeno Paulucci's trust are making the same request in the case of their mother.
Lois Paulucci signed it 40 days before she died, transferring control to Simmons and Nelson. On the day she signed, her physician found her incompetent, according to pleadings filed by Selton and Mick Paulucci.
How much in fees?
Terry Young, an attorney for Simmons and Nelson, says Jeno Paulucci was competent when he signed the trust document in October 2011. A physician who examined him that day says so, according to Young.
As to whether Simmons and Nelson will now be able to collect "exorbitant" fees, as the suit alleges, it is less clear.
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