Even billionaires lose sometimes.
An elderly widow named Vera Coking owned a small three-story house near Trump Plaza that casino magnates, including Donald Trump, had their eye on for years. Trump decided it would be a swell place to park limousines and made her an offer. She refused, enduring a full-scale Trump charm offensive.
"He'd come over to the house, probably thinking, 'If I butter her up now, I'll get her house for a good price,'" Coking told the New York Daily News in 1998. "Once, he gave me Neil Diamond tickets. I didn't even know who Neil Diamond was."
The state of New Jersey, through a casino redevelopment agency, threatened to use eminent domain to seize the land and knock it down. She was unfazed, describing Trump to the newspaper as "a maggot, a cockroach and a crumb." Coking held firm and eventually won in court.
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She ultimately sold the property to billionaire Carl Icahn for $583,000 in 2014, after she had moved to a retirement home in California.
