(The Palm Beach Post) - A Palm Beach County jury awarded $535 million to the heirs of a Turkish billionaire who accused their stepmother and half-brother of stealing their inheritance.
Mehmet Tatlici, acting as a representative of his late father's estate, sued his stepmother, Nurten Tatlici, and half-brother, Ugur Tatlici, in 2009 for allegedly siphoning assets that belonged to him and his two brothers.
Their father, Dr. Mehmet Salih Tatlici, died in February 2009 and left behind an estate worth more than $3 billion that included Istanbul's iconic Tat Towers, hundreds of properties across Turkey and valuable Florida real estate.
According to Mehmet's attorneys, Turkish inheritance law guarantees biological children a protected share of their parent's estate that cannot be defeated either by wills or asset transfers. Under this system, children have an unbreakable claim to part of their parent's wealth from birth, regardless of attempts to transfer assets away from them.
Son accused widow and half-brother of looting father’s fortune
The elder Tatlici amassed his fortune in Turkey, where he opened a battery factory that became one of the largest in the country. He used those proceeds to transition into real estate development, acquiring more than 200 properties in Turkey and the U.S. by the time he died in 2009.
According to his will, the elder Tatlici left 72% of his fortune to his second wife, Nurten, and her son, Ugur, and the remaining 28% for his three sons from his first marriage. Attorneys for Tatlici’s estate said the three sons soon learned of “substantial assets” that were transferred out of his father’s name starting in about 1995.
These assets included a waterfront mansion in Boca Raton, bank accounts with Wachovia, investment portfolios with Merrill Lynch and various business holdings. His attorneys argued that these transfers were made deliberately to avoid paying the sons' protected share.
Turkish law provides that when fraudulent transfers involve assets outside Turkey's jurisdiction, they should be resolved in the courts where the assets are located. This brought the dispute into Palm Beach County Circuit Court.
Nurten and Ugur Tatlici have denied wrongdoing since the lawsuit's inception. However, after violating several court orders, including instructions to appear for in-person mediation hearings, Circuit Judge Jaimie Goodman struck their pleadings and entered a default judgment against them.
That ruling meant that the allegations in Mehmet Tatlici’s complaint were admitted as true, leaving jurors to decide how much money the pair owed in damages. The defendants, represented by attorneys from Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, said they plan to challenge their verdict.
"Unfortunately, this was not a typical trial in which both sides had an opportunity to be heard," said attorney Jorge Piedra. He called the proceedings "an entirely one-sided affair" in which their "hands were completely tied."
Defendants didn't testify at trial
Jeremy Friedman, an attorney who helped to represent the Mehmet estate, disagreed.
"They could have called witnesses. They could have submitted evidence challenging the monetary amount we claimed was converted. They could have challenged the value of the properties in Florida, or the amount taken in Florida," he said.
"They could have challenged all that. They didn't."
Friedman said Piedra instead zeroed in on the fact that attorneys for Mehmet's estate had presented no bank records to substantiate the monetary amount they claimed was improperly taken. Friedman said they could have shown the bank records had the defendant's attorneys not convinced a judge to exclude them from the record ahead of the trial.
"It appeared that one of their strategies was to stop the jury from hearing as much evidence as possible as opposed to putting on their own evidence," Friedman said.
Piedra called Friedman's account a "complete fabrication."
“The excluded evidence had nothing to do with the alleged bank accounts and was not bank records,” he said. “It’s the same misleading claim he improperly made to the jury, and it’s why we believe this verdict will be reversed.”
Jurors deliberated for about three hours on Aug. 27 before awarding $525 million in damages against both defendants and an additional $10 million in damages against the stepmother, totaling $535 million. Attorneys Friedman, Craig Downs and David Durkee of The Downs Law Group — the same firm that had represented the plaintiff since the case began in 2009 — helped secure the verdict.
Circuit Judge Bradley Harper, the latest of several judges assigned to the case in its 15-year history, entered a final judgment against the defendants on Sept. 3.
By Hannah Phillips
September 8, 2025
