By: Hal C Clarke

It was supposed to be a night celebrating his new memoir. Instead, it turned into a scene out of a courtroom drama.

As the New York Post first reported, Gene Pressman — the 74-year-old heir to the once-glittering Barneys luxury retail empire — was served with a bombshell tax-fraud lawsuit from his own brother while promoting his just-released memoir in Manhattan.

Pressman was in the middle of signing copies of his book, They All Came to Barneys: A Personal History of the World’s Greatest Store, last Tuesday at Rizzoli Bookstore when a process server approached him. According to sources cited by the Post, the server had purchased a copy of the memoir, waited patiently in line alongside fashionistas and longtime Barneys devotees, and then, when it was his turn at the signing table, pulled out court papers instead of a book.

The lawsuit came from Pressman’s younger brother, 71-year-old Bob Pressman. As the Post had previously revealed in an exclusive, Bob has accused Gene, their two sisters, and their late mother, Phyllis, of masterminding a $20 million tax scheme that allegedly cheated New York State. The suit, which was unsealed in June, could result in more than $50 million in back taxes and penalties.

According to the Post, witnesses said Gene “went crazy” when served, erupting in shouting and curses. Bob’s attorney, Randall Fox, told the paper he wasn’t present but confirmed he had heard Gene was “not a happy camper.” Fox added, “What matters is that he was served with process and now his 20 days to respond begins.”

The suit, filed under New York’s False Claims Act, paints a striking picture. As the Post outlined, Bob alleges that the family falsely claimed their mother lived in Florida to avoid the Empire State’s estate taxes. In reality, Phyllis — the widow of Fred Pressman, who had transformed Barneys from a men’s suit shop into a fashion powerhouse — had spent her final six years at her oceanfront estate in Southampton. She died last year at 95.

Her estate, valued at around $100 million, excluded Bob entirely. According to sources cited by the Post, Phyllis’s trust documents bluntly declared: “Bob doesn’t get anything for reasons he well knows.” Meanwhile, her Southampton mansion is listed at $38.5 million, and her Upper East Side apartment recently went into contract for $3.95 million.

The drama is only the latest eruption in a decades-long saga of family feuds. As the Post recalled, Bob, Gene, and their sisters once ran Barneys together, overseeing its dramatic 1990s expansion and eventual 1996 bankruptcy. Their falling-out after selling the family stake grew nastier with time. Bob even drafted a tell-all manuscript — never published — accusing Gene of running Barneys into the ground with reckless spending while living it up at Studio 54. Gene, for his part, fired back, telling the Post that Bob “conveniently forgets” his own role as co-CEO in the company’s financial decline.

Adding to the bitter history, Bob’s sisters sued him in the early 2000s over accusations he shortchanged them $30 million.