MALIBU, Calif. — Dexter Scott King said Saturday that he was "shocked" by a recent lawsuit filed by his siblings accusing him of mismanaging money in one family account and taking money for his own personal use out of another.

"It totally blindsided me. I think maybe it was a reckless attempt to express their grievances. They are false claims and I will addressing that accordingly," King said in a brief interview at his Malibu home a few blocks from the Pacific Ocean in an exclusive community west of Los Angeles.

"We are private family," King said. "It is a private business matter, you know, a family dispute, if you will. It's probably blown out of proportion, but until I've had a chance to thoroughly review the complaint, it's just kind of difficult for me to address it."

Back in Atlanta, Juanita Abernathy winced when she picked up her Saturday morning newspaper and read that the children of Martin Luther King Jr. were suing each other over money.

"It tugs at the heartstrings, because I know that their parents would not want this," said Abernathy, the wife of the late Ralph David Abernathy, King's closest confidant. "They taught their children to get along."

Last Thursday, Bernice and Martin King III filed the lawsuit against Dexter accusing him of mishandling funds from King Inc., hiding documents from them, and taking money out of the Coretta Scott King estate.

At stake are millions of dollars in assets linked to King's intellectual property rights, including the $32 million that donors in Atlanta recently paid to acquire 10,000 pages of his papers.

"I know that if it were any other family going through any other probate struggle, it wouldn't be in the front page of the newspaper," said Michael Julian Bond, a former Atlanta councilman. "Everything you do, moments that you would love to share -- like the birth of [King III's] baby, to the pain of this lawsuit -- is subject to being broadcast everywhere. "

Atlanta became a Black Mecca when, under King's leadership, much of the strategy of the civil rights movement was planned here. The movement's leaders -- King, Abernathy, Andrew Young, Joseph Lowery, Julian Bond, and Hosea Williams -- stayed and raised families.

Their kids have been in the spotlight since birth.

"It is a double-edged sword," said Ralph David Abernathy III. "Everything you say and do is watched. The expectations that people have of you are much greater than the average individual."

Bond, whose father, Julian Bond was a founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the current chairman of the NAACP, said the pressure could be intense.

"It is almost as if you are not allowed to have any privacy or a real childhood. [The Kings] had it much worse than my brothers and sisters, but you are constantly being watched," he said, adding that adults pegged him early as a politician.

"My name was 'Michael Bond, Julian Bond's Son.' That is even how my closest friends introduced me. I was always attached to my father. It didn't matter what I did or where I went -- playing soccer in high school or trying to date girls -- it was ever present."

Juanita Abernathy said there is a certain vulnerability that all of the kids are susceptible to.

"There are vultures out there that will prey on your children, " she said. "If you sneeze loud enough, somebody will write about it."

Her son knows the dangers of an ill-placed sneeze.

Aside from the Kings, no child of an Atlanta civil rights leader has gotten more press.

"People would say, 'That is Ralph David Abernathy's son, he has had it easy, so I am going to make it hard on him,'" said Abernathy III, a former state senator. "It makes it that much tougher to grow up."

In 2000, he was sentenced to four years in prison for theft by taking, forgery, influencing a witness and violation of oath of a public officer. He was released in 2003. He said it is inevitable that a child of an icon would go through life worrying about fulfilling a legacy.

"You would not be human if it didn't cross your mind," he said. " But my father used to tell me, every tub must sit on its own bottom. Everybody is accountable for their own life."

Juanita Abernathy said she is confident that the King children will eventually settle their dispute quietly.

"I taught my children that you may fight behind closed doors but come out together, because you are the same blood and come from the same parents," she said. "I teach that every day. I know Martin and Coretta taught their children that."

That may be wishful thinking.

Dexter King said one of the reasons he was stunned by the lawsuit is that his siblings never picked up the phone to call him. Now they aren't answering their phone.

"I left them a message to call me, so we could talk, and they have not returned the call," he said. "I assumed they were busy. I just ... I don't understand it."