Editor’s note: this story corrects an earlier version that misidentified the people who filed an estate tax return for Alacer Corp. founder Jay Patrick.
The battle over the estate of Vitamin C entrepreneur Jay Patrick and his Foothill Ranch-based Alacer Corp. has taken a new twist.
The Justice Department has issued grand jury subpoenas in a probe of a tax filing for Patrick’s estate, according to lawyers representing his widow.
The tax return was filed in 2004 by Patrick’s son Ronald Patrick and lawyers Edward H. Stone and Donald Sammons.
The return reported Alacer as being worth $2 million with zero taxes owed, according to Jillyn Hess-Verdon of Newport Beach’s Hess-Verdon & Associates PLC, which represents widow Ymelda Patrick.
She claims that the maker of Emergen-C Vitamin Supplements, with yearly sales of more than $40 million, is worth more.
Ronald Patrick is in a fight with Ymelda Patrick, who alleges she was “frozen out” of the Foothill Ranch company she helped build. Ron Patrick is Jay Patrick’s only son from a prior marriage.
Jay Patrick died in 2003.
Ymelda Patrick has filed several lawsuits in the past four years against her husband’s estate, trustees for the trust that owns Alacer and other related parties.
Two suits have been tried with losses for Ymelda Patrick. In one, a judge removed her as a trustee of the James W. Patrick Trust. She’s appealing the decision.
Ronald Patrick’s lawyer, Ted Wallace of Rutan & Tucker, said his client denies Ymelda’s allegations and charges she didn’t perform her duties as a co-trustee.
