Relatives say Huguette Clark Unwell When Signing Second Will

  • July 16, 2013 20:02

  • Email
Huguette Clark as a teenager in the 1920s.
The Copper King Mansion Bed and Breakfast in Butte, Montana

New court filings say that copper mining heiress Huguette Clark was frail and unwell when she signed a second will that gives her $300 million fortune to her lawyer, accountant, and employees.

Clark could barely hold the pen to sign the will in a dark room at the Beth Israel Hospital in New York where she spent her last years, say the court papers. Her lawyer, Wallace Bock, watched over the signing along with her accountant, Irving Kamsler, a convicted sex offender.

Bock's assistant Danita Rudisill stated that Clark "mumbled" and signed with "difficulty," according to the court filings.

Aerial view of Huguette Clark's Bellosguardo estate
Photo: John Wiley

Documents state that Bock and Kamsler then celebrated their gain as beneficiaries with drinks at a nearby bar.

The papers filed at Manhattan Surrogate Court came from relatives of Clark, who died in 2011 at age 104. The family contests Bock's claim that his client knew what she was signing in April 2005.

A March 2005 will left $5 million to Clark’s personal nurse, Hadassah Peri, and the rest of the estate to Clark’s relatives.

Clark's massive fortune includes artwork and a grand oceanfront property in Santa Barbara, Calif., that she supposedly wished to turn into a museum.

Tags: european art

  • Email

More News Feed Headlines

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) Sunset, 1830-5.

After 13 Years, ARTFIXdaily to Cease Daily News Service

  • ArtfixDaily / August 15th, 2022

ARTFIXdaily will end weekday e-newsletter service after 13 years of publishing art world press releases, events and ...

Read More...
Einar and Jamex de la Torre, Critical Mass, 2002 (Courtesy of the Cheech Marin Collection and Riverside Art Museum).

Inaugural Exhibition at The Cheech Highlights Groundbreaking Chicano Artists

  • ArtfixDaily / July 7th, 2022

One of the nation’s first permanent spaces dedicated to showcasing Chicano art and culture opened on June ...

Read More...
Jacob Lawrence,.  .  .  is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?—Patrick Henry,1775 , Panel 1, 1955, from Struggle: From the History of the American People, 1954–56, egg tempera on hardboard.  Collection of Harvey and Harvey-Ann Ross.  © 2022 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Crystal Bridges Explores the U.S. Constitution Through Art in New Exhibition 'We the People: The Radical Notion of Democracy'

  • ArtfixDaily / July 7th, 2022

Original print of the U.S. Constitution headlines exhibition sponsored by Ken Griffin (who purchased it for $43.2 ...

Read More...
Salvador Dalí (1904–1989), Christ of St John of the Cross, 1951, oil on canvas © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection

Dalí / El Greco Side-by-Side Exhibit Prompts: 'Are They Really Paintings of the Same Thing?'

  • ArtfixDaily / July 6th, 2022

From July 9 to December 4, 2022, The Auckland Project in the U.K. will unite two Spanish masterpieces from British ...

Read More...

Related Press Releases