T Boone Pickens, an American oil billionaire, is embroiled in a bitter legal dispute with his own son thanks to an inflammatory blog.
As an 85-year-old Texan billionaire oil investor, Thomas Boone Pickens should be enjoying a comfortable retirement.
But instead of kicking back on his vast Dallas ranch, T. Boone Pickens – as he is universally known – is facing a bitter family legal dispute.
Mr Pickens, who made his $1.4 billion (£918 million) fortune as a business magnate and financier, is taking legal action against his son Michael, after the 58-year-old began writing an inflammatory blog attacking his family.
Michael Pickens’ blog, titled “5 Days in Connecticut”, begins as a diary detailing his struggle with alcohol and drug abuse.
But what started as a documentation of his health problems spiralled into a strongly-worded denunciation of his family, in which he accuses them of everything arrange from abuse to theft to drug use.
“If you were so wise, and your delusion were your reality, believe me, your life would look much different than it does …
“Stay away from my family.”
The family, in return, has begun legal proceedings against Michael for invasion of privacy, defamation, libel, harmful access by computer, and extortion.
“I am suffering physical manifestations of distress, including elevated blood pressure, which is very unusual for me,” said Mr Pickens Sr in a written testimony. “I am deeply embarrassed by Mike’s statements and actions.”
In the court documents, Mr Pickens Sr and his children Pam, Tom and Elizabeth say that Michael is lying in an effort to extort $20 million from their father.
Even Michael’s 31-year-old son Michael Jr – who is not involved in the case – told Forbes that his father’s blog was “highly erroneous.”
“I love my father dearly, and I know he loves me,” Michael Jr. said. “But this blog stuff is out of control, it’s not accurate in the least.”
Michael Pickens Sr has, as his blog makes clear, a long history of drug problems and legal battles.
“I was clinically depressed at age 10,” he writes. “I began drinking beer and whiskey when I was 12 – by the time I was 17 I was a drug addict and an alcoholic smoking pot every day before and after school, eating my mother’s Valium and Darvon and snorting cocaine and tripping on LSD.”
“I drank until drunk five nights of every week of my life. I lived this way for 40 years – by the time my life imploded I had been physically addicted to Benzodiazepines and Opiates for 10 years. I was dead.”
In December 2007 he was sentenced to five years probation for fraud, after orchestrating a scheme that involved distributing fictitious share tips to investors.
At the time, his father promised to pay the $1.2 million repayment of the fraudulent money.
“Because of Mike’s courageous efforts in treatment and because I wanted to clear our family’s name by making the victims whole, I have made full restitution on behalf of Mike,” said Mr Pickens
He added, with sentiment that in hindsight seems ill placed: “I am thankful that it has forced Mike to truly confront his demons for the first time in his life.”
Source The Telegraph