The public feud has deepened between the sons of billionaire Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos with a new lawsuit accusing younger son Louis of stealing his ailing father’s law firm with a power grab and manipulations that allegedly amount to elder abuse.

Peter’s wife, Georgia, sued Louis Tuesday in Baltimore County Circuit Court over his move to take sole ownership of the Law Offices of Peter Angelos amid his father’s worsening health. Peter Angelos, 93, suffers advanced dementia, according to her lawsuit.

Georgia accuses her younger son of masquerading as an agent for his father to sell the law firm to himself. Worse yet, she alleges, he sold the firm to himself for a price to be set by an independent appraiser — someone to be hired by Louis himself.

“The due date for this payment? June 8, 2037 — fifteen years from the purported purchase date, meaning it is unlikely Georgia or Peter will ever see a dime of money from Lou,” her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

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They are asking the courts to invalidate the sale, strip Louis of any authority over his father’s assets and fine him more than $75,000 under a new state law intended to help vulnerable, elderly adults in Maryland recover money lost to exploitation.

“The only small blessing is that Peter lacks the capacity to understand this betrayal,” her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

The sale of the famous law firm is confirmed in a letter dated June 8, 2022 by an attorney for Louis. The attorney, Jeffrey Nusinov, writes that Louis was forced to take action because Peter’s disability would cause him to be barred from practicing law, jeopardizing the firm and its clients.

Georgia’s lawsuit comes as the latest salvo in the legal battle between brothers John and Louis Angelos over their father’s fortune, including his law firm, the Baltimore Orioles and a $27-million real estate empire.

“These filings are nothing more than a gross distortion of reality,” Nusinov told The Baltimore Banner. “John is unsuccessfully trying to justify his manipulation of his mother, secretly to steal a greater inheritance for himself. Half of Peter Angelos’ fortune is not enough for him. Anyone can see this for what it is: a transparent and despicable act of retaliation.”

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Attorneys for Georgia did not immediately return messages Wednesday.

Her lawsuit also lays bare the rift in the family. It reveals Georgia went as far as hiring attorney Terry Giles to try and bring peace between the brothers. Giles famously brokered peace between the children of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Georgia’s attorneys accuse Louis of amassing enormous debts and mismanaging the law firm; it hadn’t paid rent in 11 months. Louis would scream at his 80-year-old mother and employ scare tactics such as having her served legal papers by people dressed as delivery men, according to the lawsuit.

“A particularly despicable tactic given that Georgia had previously been the victim of a home invasion by two individuals posing as delivery men, which Lou knows,” her attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

Nusinov called this particular claim “a complete fabrication,” saying Georgia was served by a 73-year-old woman only after her attorneys refused to accept the lawsuit.

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Louis fired the first legal shots in June, with a lawsuit accusing his older brother John of conspiring to seize unilateral control of the Orioles and sell the family real estate despite their father’s wishes that the sons share equally in his fortune. With that lawsuit, attorneys for Louis accused John of manipulating their mother with lies and scaring her into submission.

Attorneys for Georgia answered the claims in the new lawsuit.

“It is difficult to imagine anything as painful for a mother who loves her children than to be sued by an ungrateful son and falsely accused in public of being cowed and incompetent. Georgia K. Angelos is in firm control of her faculties and firmly in control of her fiduciary responsibilities to her husband,” her attorneys wrote. “How cruel and callous to have to endure such indignities, especially whilst she expected, obviously in vain, that she might have some privacy as she endures her husband’s slow descent into the darkness of dementia.”

Peter Angelos built a legal empire as one of the first attorneys in the U.S. to litigate asbestos cases. He went on to represent the state of Maryland in a lawsuit against the tobacco companies and win a $4.4 billion settlement for the state. He became the lead investor of a group that purchased the Baltimore Orioles in 1993 from Eli Jacobs, for a then-record $173 million. Minority partners included the late novelist Tom Clancy, movie director Barry Levinson, former tennis star Pam Shriver and businessman Steve Geppi.

He was inspired to buy the team by the heartbreak felt across the city when the Baltimore Colts skipped town in the middle of the night.

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“Peter was a longtime, devoted Orioles fan. So, when the owners of the Orioles — a group of non-Marylanders led by New York venture capitalist Eli Jacobs — threatened to move the club, Peter refused to allow a repeat of one of the most painful moments in the City’s history,” Georgia’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.

The principal investor, he put in $40 million to buy the team.

In November 2020, John Angelos emerged as his father’s successor after being approved by other MLB owners as the “control person” for the Baltimore Orioles, meaning the person with authority and responsibility for making decision about the club. Louis coveted his father’s approval and went into the law, but he had a strained relationship with his father.

“Peter had little confidence in Lou’s legal acumen and business savvy — a fact he was not quiet about,” Georgia’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. “Peter viewed Lou’s desperate need for Peter’s approval as weakness, which only reinforced Peter’s concerns about Lou’s professional abilities. Emblematic of these concerns, Peter never made Lou a partner in the law firm.”

Georgia’s attorneys wrote that Peter intended for the law firm to be sold or dissolved when he could no longer practice. She alleges Louis sabotaged his intentions by seizing control of the law firm.

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Similarly, her attorneys wrote, Peter felt the Orioles should be sold upon his death.

John Angelos has said publicly there are no plans to move the team away. “As long as Fort McHenry is watching over the harbor, the Orioles will be in Baltimore,” he said.

Still, Georgia’s attorneys write in the lawsuit of steps intended to “liquidate” the family interest in the team, possibly in anticipation of a sale.

The Maryland Stadium Authority has said it continues to negotiate to renew its lease with the team. The Orioles’ original lease was set to expire at the end of 2021, but the team signed a two-year extension through the end of 2023. The team can make a one-time, five-year extension by Feb. 1, 2023.

tim.prudente@thebaltimorebanner.com

This story was updated Thursday with a response from Jeffrey Nusinov to the allegation about how Georgia Angelos was served the lawsuit.

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