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Call it Operation Smurf.
Beth Israel Medical Center honchos plotted to ply heiress Huguette Clark with Smurfs in order to get cash from their wealthiest patient, according to a new court filing obtained by The Post.
One hospital official suggested sending the childlike, then-86-year-old recluse a birthday gift of Smurf or Flintstone balloons, noting that “Smurfs are her new favorite cartoon.”
Hospital CEO Dr. Robert Newman enlisted his own elderly mother to befriend the aged multimillionaire and visit her hospital room on a daily basis “with the objective of obtaining even more purported gifts,” the papers allege.
At one point, Newman’s mom was directed to keep asking Clark for a cash gift “even if she changes the subject to Smurfs or Flintstones.”
In 1998, she was dispatched to endure a Smurf movie with Clark and advise her during the viewing about “the great joy and spiritual satisfaction of preparing her will” — a document executives hoped would shower the hospital with riches, court papers charge.
“I kid you not! My mom spent 30 minutes watching the Smurfs celebrate Christmas: she deserves a medal,” Newman reported, according to court papers.
The childless copper heiress, before her death in 2011 at the age of 104, lived voluntarily at Beth Israel for the last two decades of her life, despite no real need for hospital care. She had few visitors, played with dolls from her collection and watched cartoons.
Clark’s distant relatives are fighting for control of her $306 million estate, alleging that her caregivers — including lawyer Wallace Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler, who are being investigated for their handling of Clark’s affairs — conspired to get her cash.
The new filing by Public Administrator Joy Thompson seeks the return to Clark’s estate of more than $40 million in gifts Clark made during her life, including $4 million she gave to Beth Israel, $34.5 million she gave to her private nurse, Hadassah Peri, and her family, and $2.3 million she gave to a Beth Israel doctor and his wife.
Thompson alleges that Clark’s physical and mental condition left her “subject to Beth Israel’s influence and control and not able to make a free and intelligent decision in response to any request Beth Israel might make for a gift.”
In 1998, hospital execs discussed whether to alert their own legal department that she could die without a will.
“If we raise the issue with them, they might push the question of whether she should even be living at the hospital,” an unnamed hospital official is quoted as saying.
Among the gifts Clark gave to Beth Israel were nearly $1 million in donations and an Impressionist painting by Edouard Manet, which it later sold for $3.5 million.
Beth Israel responded: “We are disappointed at the attempt to take back charitable donations that Ms. Clark freely made to Beth Israel to express her gratitude for the hospital’s lifesaving and compassionate care and her recognition of the hospital’s important mission.”
Additional reporting by Kathianne Boniello