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15 years ago

Finances and welfare of 104-year-old Montana copper heiress at center of NY criminal probe 

By VERENA DOBNIK , Associated Press
Last update: August 25, 2010 - 11:38 PM

NEW YORK - A 104-year-old heiress to a Montana copper mining fortune now living in a New York hospital room is at the center of a criminal investigation into her fortune and welfare, two people familiar with the probe told The Associated Press.

The Manhattan district attorney's office is looking into how Huguette Clark is being cared for and how her finances are being handled, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the probe.

Clark has been living in hospitals since leaving her luxury co-op overlooking Central Park more than 20 years ago, according to building staff who saw her depart in an ambulance.

Attorney Wallace Bock and accountant Irving Kamsler have been in charge of her financial affairs for years, and they're among the few people who have contact with her.

"She's very much alive," Bock told the AP recently.

Neither Bock nor Kamsler returned calls about the investigation, which was first reported by MSNBC.com.

The Manhattan district attorney's office declined to say Wednesday whether a probe was under way. The office successfully prosecuted the case surrounding Brooke Astor, the late philanthropist and heiress whose 85-year-old son was convicted of scheming with her attorney to bilk millions of dollars from her.

Clark is worth about half a billion dollars four times as much as Astor.

There is no public record of a Clark will, and distant relatives have not seen her in years.

Neither Bock nor Kamsler has been charged in the Clark probe, but the questions remain: How are she and her fortune being cared for?

When she left home on the stretcher, Clark was frail but not physically ill, according to building staff.

Since then, nobody has lived in her meticulously maintained 42 rooms at 907 Fifth Ave., or her Connecticut castle, surrounded by 52 acres of land and now on the market for $24 million.

The properties are financed by her inheritance as the daughter of a 19th century Montana copper mining king who built railroads across America, founding Las Vegas along the way.

Clark also owns a mansion in Santa Barbara, Calif., on a 23-acre bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

All that's left of her privileged existence are the lifeless properties and her name in the New York Social Register.

After leaving the Fifth Avenue apartment, Clark took up residence in Doctors' Hospital on the Upper East Side to be "more comfortable," according to MSNBC.com reports documenting her life.

But the hospital building was razed in 2004, and she's now in an ordinary hospital room elsewhere in the city.

Clark's story begins in 1906 Paris, where she was born to then 67-year-old U.S. Sen. William A. Clark, of Montana, and a 28-year-old Michigan woman named Anna Eugenia La Chapelle.

Years of mining the Montana earth for copper made Clark the second-richest man in America, after the Rockefellers. To prove it, he built an ostentatious mansion on New York's Fifth Avenue and gained power as a U.S. senator who served one term.

His daughter attended Miss Spence's School for Girls in Manhattan, now The Spence School, studying modern dance while getting savvy about politics and art.

In the Roaring Twenties, the Clarks' Fifth Avenue home was the scene of wild parties, and Huguette hung out with rich young men who drove fast cars and flew planes.

At 22, she married a poor bank clerk studying law, but they parted ways after only nine months. Huguette Clark cited desertion by her husband. He claimed she failed to consummate the marriage, according to "The Clarks: An American Phenomenon," a book written by former family employee William D. Mangam.

Shortly after her father died in 1925, she and her mother left the mansion and moved to 907 Fifth Ave., the Italian-Renaissance-palazzo-style building where Huguette Clark lived for six decades. It's still one of the city's most posh co-ops, and hers is the biggest apartment property on Fifth Avenue.

When her mother died in 1963, Huguette was transformed from a rather private socialite in her 50s to a social specter an eccentric whom building staff members say they never saw; she had whatever she needed delivered.

Even distant relatives attempting to visit were discouraged from entering; she told several of them to stand on the sidewalk and she would wave to them, staffers remember.

"She never went out," said Laurance Kaiser IV, a Manhattan real estate agent who once met her in the Fifth Avenue building.

She apparently trusted almost no one, but was generous. Each doorman got a $500 check from her at Christmas. They'd seen her only a few times over the decades and only by accident, while slipping mail under her door when she happened to open it. She would scurry away.

Huguette Clark left for good one day in the 1980s, on the stretcher.

"She just got tired of living," Kaiser said.

Steven Shirley, an amateur historian in Helena, Mont., said Clark was "very much on top of things very lucid" when he last spoke to her a half dozen years ago, by phone.

Though hard of hearing and unable to understand all of his questions, "she reminisced about her days in France before World War I," Shirley told the AP. "She read The New York Times every day and she was very aware of world events," he added.

In the end, her vast fortune allowed the heiress to lead an ever more solitary life.

She's said to have once told friends that extreme wealth is a "menace to happiness."


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Mucky Tundra (8h) : Anything over 4 hours means he needs to get to the hospital
Mucky Tundra (8h) : Someone might want to check on Hafley and make sure his erection has gone down
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buckeyepackfan (12h) : DEAL IS DONE
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wpr (18h) : Me do-ed it gooderly,
Zero2Cool (28-Aug) : Bahah, I was like WTF why isn't anyone posting on PP.com ... oops no one has permissions
dfosterf (27-Aug) : tell her I reckon
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Micah Robinson cut. Probable PS player tomorrow. Has to call mom back and t
Zero2Cool (27-Aug) : New site so much better. Might make switch and deal with it.
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Mecole Hardman to our practice squad
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Nick Nieman from Texans our 5th linebacker. Special teams signing
TheKanataThrilla (27-Aug) : Looks like we signed Clayton Tune as QB3
wpr (27-Aug) : TKT people lose their minds over QB3. Point is almost none of them are ready that's why they are on the PS and other teams don't take them.
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TheKanataThrilla (27-Aug) : Not sure if either will be claimed though.
TheKanataThrilla (27-Aug) : Tune or Hooker would make sense
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Clayton Tune cut by the Cards? Don't know if that's the guy, we shall see
TheKanataThrilla (27-Aug) : Per Bill Huber, the Packers will not be bringing back Taylor Elgersma or Sean Clifford on the practice squad, so a new third quarterback
Mucky Tundra (27-Aug) : Schefter must have deleted his tweet
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Hopefully Jerry reaches under the seat cushions and ashtrays of his jet and scrapes up the 45 million apr and spares us further nonsense
dfosterf (27-Aug) : Have to admit the PO'd Cowboy fan videos would be fun to watch. Problem with draft picks is half their fanbase barely knows what that is
beast (27-Aug) : I think Cowboys fans are ready to get their pitch forks and burning sticks if Jerry were to trade Micah
dfosterf (27-Aug) : If Jerry traded Micah to GB, here in northern Va. they would have to quick build yet another data center to handle the internet hate traffic
Zero2Cool (27-Aug) : its signing and trades that you don't hear about, other then announced
Zero2Cool (27-Aug) : If you hear rumors about Packers sign or trade, won't happen. Not how they work
dfosterf (27-Aug) : 19 players in a contract year. Jones called loss to us worst loss in Cowboy history. Forget Parsons trade. Not happenin' Cap'n
packerfanoutwest (27-Aug) : The Packers, meanwhile, are the youngest team in the league for the third consecutive year.
dfosterf (27-Aug) : That it was darkest before the dawn in Bengals and Commanders before they got deals done
Zero2Cool (27-Aug) : what is Schefter saying?
dfosterf (27-Aug) : He was getting Dorito infusion therapy
dfosterf (27-Aug) : He's outta shape. Why, just the other day I saw him splayed out on the trainers table
Mucky Tundra (27-Aug) : Parsons has followed Rasheed Walker on Twitter. Quite the choice
Mucky Tundra (27-Aug) : Kuhn is a former player who works for the team, if somethings going down, he would be close to it
Mucky Tundra (27-Aug) : @kuhnj30 Micah Freaking Parsons
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