April 26--A remorseful Sumner Redstone late last year apologized to his daughter for a nasty family squabble that once prompted Redstone to threaten to bar her from attending his funeral -- or even visit him in the hospital, according to newly released court documents.
The court documents were made public in the contentious legal dispute on Monday, after the Los Angeles Times and two other media organizations petitioned the judge handling the case to open reams of court documents that had been sealed.
The documents were released in advance of a trial, which is scheduled to begin May 6, to determine whether the ailing 92-year-old media mogul is mentally incompetent and whether he has been under undue influence by the people who surround him.
The letter to Shari Redstone, who is vice chair of Viacom and CBS, revealed just how deep divisions in the Redstone family, which holds the controlling voting shares in Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp., became after the media mogul a few years ago began spending much of his time with two female companions.
Shari Redstone, at the time, felt that she was not welcome in her father's home.
"This letter expresses my true feelings, and I am under no duress or coercion when signing it," Redstone said in the Dec. 11 letter to Shari Redstone.
The letter was written nearly two months after Redstone expelled Manuela Herzer, his former companion, from his home and his life. Herzer filed the lawsuit in late November, after Redstone removed her as the agent in charge of his advance healthcare directive. At that time, Redstone also removed Herzer from his will.
Earlier in the summer of 2015, Redstone terminated his relationship with his girlfriend of five years, Sydney Holland, after discovering her infidelities, according to court documents. She, too, was removed from Redstone's estate plan, according to the court documents.
"I wish to put our family back as we were before Sydney and Manuela, and restore our family relationship to what it was then," Redstone wrote in the letter to his daughter.
He apologized that he had threatened to bar Shari Redstone from his funeral, and said that he was sorry that "others" had made Shari Redstone and her children feel unwelcome in his sprawling Beverly Park estate.
"You are all invited to stay with me and visit me any time, I am very sorry to hear that others have excluded you and your family from my house. That will never happen again," Redstone wrote, noting that two of his nurses were witnesses to his change of heart.
The document release came after the judge handling the case, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge David J. Cowan, this month asked Redstone's legal team to explain why it had violated his March 18 ruling to unseal several documents that were not related to Redstone's medical care.
Separately, Sumner Redstone's attorneys said the mogul wants to close key portions of his upcoming mental competency trial, including testimony from doctors and his nurses. The lawyers argued that details about the mogul's medical condition should be kept confidential.
"Mr. Redstone objects to the public being present for any portion of testimony from treating or examining physicians and nursing staff," according to a proposal submitted by Redstone's attorney, Laura A. Wytsma, of Loeb Loeb. "There can be no dispute that Mr. Redstone enjoys a constitutional right to medical privacy."
Cowan now must decide whether Redstone's request to protect details about his health and medical care trump the First Amendment and expectations that trials are open to the public.
Last month, Cowan said he recognized that Redstone had certain rights to protect his privacy, and he asked Redstone's attorneys to come up with a plan to try to keep medical information confidential during a public trial.
But the judge indicated he wanted the trial to remain open.
"The court intends that the trial be open to the public," Cowan wrote in his March 18 ruling.
The case likely hinges on testimony from the various doctors who have examined the mogul in the last few months. Redstone's lawyers said if witnesses were asked to give testimony about Redstone's condition, then the public would be cleared from the courtroom. They also said that redacted court transcripts would be available 24 hours after individuals testified behind closed doors.
Jean-Paul Jassy, a lawyer who handled the motion filed on behalf of The Times and the Hollywood Reporter, said the plan submitted would violate the public's right to attend the trial.
"The plan put forth by Mr. Redstone's counsel does not adequately protect the public's right to know what is happening in court," Jassy said. "What Mr. Redstone's counsel has proposed is an unworkable system with people being ushered in and out of the courtroom, question by question."
Redstone's attorneys, in the court document, said the mogul would not object to testimony from Viacom Chairman and Chief Executive Philippe Dauman, his daughter Shari Redstone and his two former companions, Herzer and Holland, being given in open court.
meg.james@latimes.com
Twitter: @MegJamesLAT
