The scandalous Seagrams: Inside the Bronfman family’s dark past
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The Bronfman family are known as the heirs of the infamous Canadian beverage company Seagram’s, but they also have a scandalous past.
Samuel Bronfman, the patriarch of one of the most influential and wealthiest Jewish families in Canada, first delved into the alcohol business in 1903 after his family purchased a hotel, leading him to start up Distillers Corporation in Montreal in 1924.
He started off with selling cheap whiskey in major U.S. cities, including New York, Boston and Chicago, during the Prohibition – when the production and distribution of alcohol was illegal.
The Jewish refugee then acquired the Seagram Company in 1928 from Joseph E. Seagram & Sons of Waterloo, Ontario – leading his family to billionaire status.
Samuel shared four children with his wife Saidye Rosner: Aileen Mindel ‘Minda’ Bronfman, Phyllis Bronfman, Edgar Miles Bronfman Sr., and Charles Rosner Bronfman.
One of Edgar Sr.’s sons, Samuel Jr. was kidnapped in 1975, and held for ransom in Yorktown Heights, New York, until his father and FBI agents saved him.
Edgar Sr.’s other child, Clare Bronfman – one of two daughters he had with his third wife Rita Eileen Webb – is a convicted felon and former leader of the sex cult NXIVM.
Meanwhile, Hannah Bronfman, the youngest daughter of his son Edgar Bronfman Jr., was recently branded ‘out of touch’ after she launched an entitled rant online when she was refused entry at an airport security checkpoint.
On August 8 1975, Samuel Bronfman II, then 21, was kidnapped after having dinner with his father.
He sat alone in his green BMW car where he was held at gunpoint before being snatched and thrown in another vehicle. A call was then made to his father’s home in Westchester County to inform him his son had been taken.He also received a ransom note that claimed Samuel Jr. would be buried alive unless $2.3 million was sent to the kidnappers, specifically in $10 bills.
They also claimed they would kill his father Edgar Sr. with cyanide bullets if the instructions were not followed.
The late billionaire scion then found himself waiting by a payphone outside the airport for a call on August 15.
The following day, his palatial Fifth Avenue apartment turned into a makeshift FBI headquarters.
At 9:12pm the phone rang and he was ordered to drive to an undisclosed underpass in the shadow of the Queensborough Bridge, put his car in park and wait 15 minutes. At around 3:00am, Edgar Sr. was asked to stop his car on a street corner in Woodside by one of the abductors, Mel Patrick Lynch, who met up with co-conspirator, Dominic Byrne. Byrne was waiting to load the ransom bags into the trunk of a 1971 rust-colored Oldsmobile before the two criminals drove off.
Undercover agents nearby wrote down the New York license plate number that was registered to Lynch’s Brooklyn home address.
Some 25 hours later, Samuel Jr., loosely bound, disoriented and blindfolded was saved by federal agents who stormed the apartment.William K. Madden, Lynch’s defense attorney, said the entire abduction was staged.
The 37-year-old New York firefighter arrested for Bronfman’s kidnapping said he had been deeply involved in a romantic relationship with Samuel for over a year.
He proceeded to tell investigators that he only agreed to the scheme because Samuel Jr. had threatened to go to the fire department about Lynch’s sexuality.
Samuel Jr. has vehemently denied ever knowing his captors before his abduction, with the Assistant District Attorney putting up a strong case on his behalf. He made the point he was the son of one of the wealthiest men in America and did not need the money.
In 1976, Lynch and Byrne were convicted only of extortion. Samuel Jr. told reporters it’s ‘pretty sad’ they got acquitted on kidnaping charges.
Content retrieved from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14128209/inside-bronfman-family-dark-past-seagreams.html.
