Soul music legend Gladys Knight accused her son of trying to “extort” and “blackmail” her by threatening to falsely claim that she has dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease, according to a recent filing in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.
The filing marks an ugly turn in the legal dispute between mother and son over his Gladys Knight's Chicken and Waffles restaurants. Knight, 72, an Atlanta native, filed suit against her son Shanga Hankerson in August to get her name removed from his eateries because she thinks their recent troubles are hurting her reputation.
The threats from her son were made in an attempt to pressure Knight in the case, the Sept. 29 filing argues.
“Ms. Knight refuses to be extorted, blackmailed, or harassed,” it states.
Hankerson, 40, was arrested on felony theft charges in June after Georgia Department of Revenue agents said he failed to turn over to the state taxes that he had collected. His employees told investigators he used money from the iconic Atlanta eateries for sex parties and marijuana, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found.
Authorities said Hankerson owes nearly $1 million in unpaid taxes interest and penalties and filed civil racketeering charges against him.
The restaurant's popular Peachtree Street location in downtown Atlanta flunked an Oct. 6 health check after inspectors observed "heavy fruit fly activity," two dead roaches, two live roaches and employees who failed to wash their hands. Raw fish and cooked ground salmon were stored in a cooler with temperatures above 57 degrees.
Department of Revenue investigators said Knight was not involved in the restaurants’ day-to-day operations and is not suspected of wrongdoing.
John Jett, Knight’s attorney, declined comment. Hankerson’s attorney, Dana Tucker Davis, did not respond by deadline Friday to attempts to reach her by phone and email.
In the federal court filing, Knight’s attorneys accused Tucker Davis of threatening to reveal Knight’s health problems in court if an issue in the case was not resolved in her son’s favor.
“If the media gets wind of her medical condition her career will be impacted. She was forgetting rehearsal and performance dates/times this week,” Tucker Davis said in an email dated Sept. 22 that was included in the filing. “We don’t want her bombarded by reporters.”
“Dana – Ms. Knight will not negotiate concerning these threats, Jett replied.
That same day, Hankerson filed a response to Knight’s suit that accused the soul singer of lacking the “mental capacity” to rescind her son’s permission to use her name. Tucker Davis told the AJC in an interview that Hankerson did not intend to imply that Knight was ill. He thought his mother was getting bad information about his role in the restaurants’ troubles, the attorney said.
But Knight sees the filing as an attempt to smear her.
“This case presents a difficult situation for Ms. Knight, but she cannot idly sit back and watch her life’s work and reputation be tarnished,” the recent filing states.
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