By Jennifer Jacobs, The Associated PressA family feud over jewelry has taken a strange turn, and a man has filed a lawsuit accusing his father of sexually assaulting him when they were teenagers.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in New York, accuses Fredrick J. Ritchie, 63, of molesting his son when he was 15 years old.
Ritchie is suing his son and the family of his other two children, saying they abused him and forced him to give them drugs and alcohol.
In the lawsuit, Fredrick Ritchie’s wife, Mary, said the two had been married for eight years when she met him at a New York City nightclub in the 1980s.
Mary Ritchie told the court the couple had a daughter together.
The Ritchies are not the only family feud in recent years over jewelry.
In June, an Arizona man filed a civil lawsuit against his mother-in-law and his father for alleged abuse, claiming she repeatedly beat him, threatened to kill him and raped him when he worked as a bartender.
In a recent story, The New York Times said the family feuds have become a national phenomenon in the U.K. in recent months.