Kentucky

Lawsuit pits sons vs. jeweler over necklace



By Andrew Wolfson ? awolfson@courier-journal.com ? July 11, 2009



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The year after Jean McCauley Brown died in 2004, her husband, retired Brown-Forman Corp. chairman Robinson S. Brown Jr., saw a picture of a spectacular emerald and diamond necklace that Richard Burton once gave to his then-wife Elizabeth Taylor.



Brown asked Louisville jeweler Jim Jackson to make or find him one like it, saying he'd be willing to spend as much as $3 million.



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Jackson found what Brown was looking for ? a stunning necklace with 42 carats of emeralds and 300 diamonds ? along with a pair of matching earrings. Jackson paid $500,000 for the set and sold it to Brown in March 2005 for $800,000.



When Brown died four months later, at age 88, his two sons immediately sought to sell the necklace and earrings.



But when they were offered hundreds of thousands less than their father had originally paid, they filed suit in Jefferson Circuit Court, accusing Jackson and his business, Aesthetics in Jewelry, of fraud.



In a case rife with allegations of greed and betrayal, Robinson S. Brown III and J. McCauley "Mac" Brown will ask a jury next week to rescind the sale or award damages equal to the difference between what their father paid and the jewels' fair-market value.



The younger Browns allege Jackson "tricked" him father into buying the jewels by claiming they were worth as much as $1.2 million.



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