EPISODE 2

“Operation Freedom”

On September 2 estate lawyer Leah Bishop met with Sumner to revise his legal documents. He eradicated Holland from his will. Herzer was now slated to get everything, which was more than twice as much as before—$50 million—plus the Beverly Park mansion, then valued at $20 million, for a total of $70 million. Herzer was designated Sumner’s sole health care proxy. (Sumner named Viacom chief Dauman as a backup.)

With Holland vanquished and Herzer in sole command of the Redstone household, the last thing Herzer wanted was any interference from Shari or her family. Just two days after Holland’s unceremonious exit, on September 3, Herzer walked into the room while Sumner was on the phone. After Octaviano told her he was talking to his granddaughter Kimberlee, Herzer angrily grabbed the receiver and hung up. Sumner started crying.

A week later Shari was scheduled to visit, but Herzer told Sumner he was too busy to see her and canceled the visit. Herzer asked Sumner’s doctor to write a letter advising him that contact with his family was a threat to his health. Octaviano overheard Herzer on the phone with Dauman, insisting that Shari not be allowed to discuss business matters with her father.

Herzer quickly consolidated her newfound power. She installed hidden cameras throughout the house, including in Sumner’s bedroom. She tightened her grip on the staff, banned any contact with Holland, and threatened to send one housekeeper to jail for suspected leaking. The staff was barred from reading the newspaper to Sumner or transmitting any information to him.

Herzer asked Keryn to move into the mansion full-time to help with Sumner’s care and gave Keryn access to her grandfather’s credit card to pay moving expenses and other charges. She also had Sumner create a $1 million trust fund for Keryn that allowed her to spend the income from the principal.

Then, her mission apparently accomplished, Herzer took off for Paris and the premiere of Knock Knock, an erotic thriller starring Keanu Reeves, Herzer’s latest “infatuation.” The film made its debut at the American Film Festival in Deauville, France, on September 5 to mixed reviews (a “giddily sadistic black comedy,” per The New York Times). While Herzer was away, her brother Carlos moved in and stood guard.

One week, while the Beverly Park mansion was being fumigated, Herzer took Sumner to a Malibu beach house she’d rented on his behalf, even though, according to Jagiello, it was being used as a “party house” by Herzer’s children. (Sumner, of course, paid the rent.) Once they arrived, Herzer occupied the master bedroom suite with a sweeping view of the ocean. Sumner was relegated to a small guest room at the back of the house, within earshot of the busy Pacific Coast Highway. A nurse complained that the room’s small dimensions made it difficult for Sumner to maneuver in his wheelchair.

However close they may once have been, Sumner didn’t love Herzer the way he had Holland. “He appeared to care far less for Manuela,” Octaviano observed.

Nor did Herzer participate in any sex with him. Herzer complained that Sumner was “fixated on sex on a daily basis.” He asked repeatedly to see Terry Holbrook, the former Oilers cheerleader whom he’d been dating in 2010 before meeting Holland and who later got monthly cash retainers for providing sexual services, Herzer later alleged. With her long brunette hair, Holbrook bore a striking resemblance to Holland and thus must have posed an especially potent threat to replace Holland in Sumner’s affections and even in his estate plans.

That was not about to happen. Herzer gave the staff strict orders to prevent any contact between Sumner and Holbrook. When Sumner asked for Holbrook, Octaviano and other staff members told him she was sick, she was out of town, or that she couldn’t be located when, in fact, she was nearby and willing to visit him. After Sumner asked Jagiello to send Holbrook flowers, Herzer countermanded the order but told him to tell Sumner that the flowers had been sent. When Sumner asked his nurses to dial Holbrook in his presence so he could get on the phone and speak to her, Herzer instead dialed her own number, handed the phone to Sumner, and had him leave a message when no one answered.

“Manuela told me and the other nurses that she did not want Mr. Redstone seeing Terry,” Jagiello stated. As a result, “I was lying to Mr. Redstone on an almost daily basis at Manuela’s direction.”

In place of Holbrook, Herzer arranged for visits by Heidi MacKinney, a brunette who also bore some resemblance to Holland. Unlike Holbrook, MacKinney posed no threat to Herzer; though she had gone on a few dates with Sumner before he met Holland, she now worked for Herzer as a personal assistant while caring for her special-needs child. She’d been a character witness for Herzer years earlier when Herzer was in a bitter custody battle with her ex-husband.

Still, it must have come as something of a shock that her job as Herzer’s personal assistant included ministering to the sexual appetites of a ninety-two-year-old man. In a sworn affidavit, MacKinney said she visited Sumner five times after Holland left, or about once a week, and tried to “engage” sexually with him. Jagiello, his nurse, was always present and orchestrated the encounters, “directing me and telling me what sex acts to perform,” she said. But during her visit on October 2, Sumner was “completely unresponsive,” she asserted, and she vowed not to return.

And Holland was by no means entirely out of the picture. Sumner was clearly still enamored of her—he talked about her constantly and seemed obsessed by her relationship with Pilgrim. Holland herself had every intention of returning to her rightful place at the mansion, and likely in his estate plan as well. As she put it, she “tried her best to show Redstone her remorse.” She sent him letters, cards, flowers, and notes, but she never got a response. When she tried to phone, his line had been disconnected and the number changed. Holland explored the possibility of suing Herzer, but her lawyer talked her out of it.

Finally Holland tried an end run by having her lawyer send a letter intended for Sumner to Leah Bishop, with a request to hand-deliver it to Sumner. “I am beyond sorry that I hurt you,” the letter began. “I am so sad that I was not allowed to say goodbye and I want nothing from you, but to see you. . . . I beg of you to consider letting Alexandra and I visit. She is such a beautiful little girl. . . . She reminds me of you and how resilient you are and how you never give up.”

Holland continued. “Sumner, just know that I will love you forever and always, not a day goes by without me thinking of what we shared. Please Sumner, have Leah arrange for us to see each other. Love Always, Sydney.”

Bishop brought the letter to the mansion in early October. Jagiello was there when she arrived, and he recalled that Herzer “grabbed” the letter from Bishop and started to read it to Sumner.

But after just a few words of this seemingly heartfelt apology, Herzer abruptly broke off, folded the letter, and told Sumner she’d finish reading it to him later.

Later that day Herzer rejoined Sumner with what purported to be Holland’s letter and read it aloud in its entirety.

“I did not lie to you everyone else is lying,” the letter began. “I never had an affair with that man. . . . It’s not true people are just trying to break us up. . . . You have to believe me I never lied to you. I don’t know who he is. . . . Don’t understand why you don’t believe me and you believe everyone else.”

It was readily apparent to Jagiello, who was at Sumner’s side for both readings, that this missive bore no resemblance to the one Herzer had earlier started to read, which was never seen or heard again. Nothing about this letter sounded like Holland. It also strained credulity that Holland would now assert she “never had an affair with that man” and “I don’t know who he is” when Holland, with her lawyer present, had already confessed the affair with Pilgrim and begged Sumner’s forgiveness. Herzer turned the contradiction to her advantage, telling Sumner, “You can’t believe her.”

Sumner asked Herzer to read the letter aloud again. Herzer handed it to Jagiello to read and walked out.

The next day Sumner told Jagiello he wanted to hear the letter a third time. The nurse couldn’t find it, so he went upstairs to Herzer’s room to get a copy. When he entered, Herzer, one of her daughters, and Keryn were huddled over a laptop computer, apparently composing yet another letter. “I waited about 10 minutes while Manuela finished the letter,” Jagiello recalled. Herzer “then handed it to me and told me to go read it to Mr. Redstone, which I reluctantly did.”

The constant deception took a toll on the nurses and staff. While Holland could be temperamental and demanding, she was also often considerate and understanding. By contrast, Herzer was “exceptionally domineering,” as Jagiello put it. Pilgrim’s nickname for her—“Pitbull”—had stuck for good reason. Octaviano acknowledged that “it would be fair to say” that he hated Herzer.

Within weeks of Holland’s departure, Jagiello, Octaviano, and Sumner’s driver, Isileli Tuanaki, with the tacit encouragement of Tyler, began planning a palace coup. On September 18 Jagiello texted Tyler: “Thanks for talking last night. Seal team commence operation freedom today! FYI! I will keep you posted.” He added, “Let’s hope this goes well.”

As for Sumner, “Once he knows the truth, he is going to be livid!” Jagiello texted Tyler.