Reclusive copper heiress Huguette Clark apparently had a complete change of heart about who to leave her $400 million fortune just before she turned 99.
A newly discovered will — signed by Clark in March 2005 and revealed yesterday —left $5 million to her nurse and the rest of her fortune to her 21 grand and great nieces and nephews.
But another previously known will, signed by the then-98-year-old heiress just six weeks later, left her nurse $35 million and her lawyer and accountant $500,000 and control of a multimillion foundation — while cutting her family out entirely.
Both the lawyer, Wallace Bock, and the accountant, Irving Kamsler, are now being investigated by the Manhattan DA’s office for their handling of Clark’s affairs. Clark died earlier this year at 104, after having spent the past 20 plus years living in hospitals.
Her family revealed the existence of the new will in papers filed in Manhattan Surrogate’s Court, accusing the pair of “plundering” Clark’s accounts.
“Before the court are substantial and gravely serious issues of alleged deceit, undue influence and exploitation of a very elderly and extraordinarily wealthy woman at the hands of two professionals who took control of her life, isolated her from her family and ultimately stripped her of her free will, as well as millions of dollars,” says the filing, which was posted on msnbc.com.
The filing pointed to the lawyer and money man’s recent account of how they handled Clark’s money, which the papers said “provide a chilling report of the mishandling, misappropriation and mismanagement of Huguette’s assets over a period of … 15 years.”
That includes $76 million in unexplained disbursementsfrom one accountand millions more in mysterious payments, the filing says.
The accounting also shows “a total of approximately $170 million in disbursements over the 15-year period from [an account controlled by the pair] and Huguette’s personal account, i.e., approximately $1 million a month while Huguette was in the hospital,” the papers charge.
The filing also takes aim at Bock and Kamstler’s claims that she had barely any contact with her family.
The relatives said they had plenty — until they were suddenly blocked from talking to her by Bock around 2004 and 2005.
Before that, Clark had “remained true to her family” by “remaining in contact with certain of her relatives over the years, sharing events in their lives,” the filing says. It seeks judicial permission for the relatives to challenge the will.
Bock and Kamsler have denied any wrongdoing and said they merely carried out Clark’s wishes. They were the ones who provided the family with the previously unseen will.
In both 2005 documents, Bock and Kamsler are named as executors of Clark’s estate, a job that could earn them millions in fees.
Clark had two other wills that she signed in the 1920s which left everything to her mother, who died in 1963.