Perelman’s daughter fights for $600M

Defense lawyers went right for the jugular in opening statements at a trial pitting Revlon billionaire Ronald Perelman’s daughter against the brother of her late mom, gossip columnist Claudia Cohen, over the young woman’s claim to a $ 600 million share of her grandfather’s estate.

Samantha Perelman “tormented her grandfather in the last years of his life,” uncle James Cohen’s attorney, Benjamin Clarke, charged in his hour-long opening statement Monday in a New Jersey courtroom.

James CohenGregory P. Mango

Clarke fired a battery of insults at the 23-year-old, who at times shuddered with tears as the lawyer accused her of putting her granddad through a legal grilling at age 83.

The Columbia University grad student had in April 2009 tried to get a judge to declare her grandfather, Robert Cohen, incapacitated, alleging that her uncle was trying to gobble up his father’s business assets.

The Cohen family runs the Hudson News empire, whose newsstands are ever-present in airports and train stations around the United States.

Perelman ultimately lost that case, but Cohen’s attorney made a point of noting that she didn’t attend the deposition and then blasted: “She did not see her grandfather in the last four years of his life.”

Perelman ripped the claim.

“I tried to see my grandfather when I was home from college over the four years I attend Penn,” she told The Post. “I was always told he wasn’t available or that it wasn’t a good time.”

She claims her uncle improperly influenced his Parkinson’s-ravaged dad to disinherit her.

Her attorney, Paul Rowe, shot back that it was “unthinkable” that patriarch Robert Cohen would “cut out the daughter of his favorite child” — former Page Six editor Claudia Cohen — from his will.

After two hours, Robert Cohen’s driver of 26 years, Juan Espinal, took the stand. Seeking to show jurors that the old man still had his wits about him, Cohen lawyer John Bauer asked Espinal about their monthly jaunts to the Saratoga and Belmont race tracks.

Robert Cohen went to the tracks up until a year before his death in February 2012, Espinal testified.

“He would look at all of the details,” Espinal said.

When Bauer asked about his betting record, Perelman’s attorney objected. This time the judge cut off questioning.

“A lot of this has to do with luck,” Judge Estela De La Cruz said. “And this trial is not about luck.”

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