Battle Over $500M Fortune of Manhattan Heiress Huguette Clark

Dispute erupts over handling of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark's fortune.

ByABC News
September 8, 2010, 1:44 PM

Sept. 9, 2010— -- The details of the deeply private life that heiress Huguette Clark so fiercely protected are being exposed in an ugly legal fight over her $500 million fortune.

The reclusive Clark, who inherited riches amassed by her father in Montana's mining industry at the turn of last century, has spent the past 20 years living in a New York Hospital room.

The fragile 104-year-old has largely shunned visitors and has for years left decisions touching leaving every facet of her life in the hands of her longtime lawyer -- from bidding on vintage dolls at auction on her behalf to settling disputes among her personal nurses.

"Ms. Clark has always been a strong-willed individual with firm convictions about how her life should be led and who should be privy to her affairs," said in an affidavit filed in court from her lawyer, Wallace Bock, who finds himself embroiled in a legal dispute over the alleged mismanagement of Clark's fortune.

Though Clark has a 42-room apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue and sprawling estates in California and Connecticut, she has lived quietly for decades in a hospital room, most recently at Beth Israel Medical Center. The legal wrangling over her fortune, meanwhile, has exposed snippets of her once shrouded life.

In a state court, two of Clark's nieces and a nephew last week asked a Manhattan judge to appoint a guardian to oversee her personal and financial affairs. The petition also asked the court to bar Bock and certified public accountant Irving Kamsler from visiting or representing Clark.

In federal lawsuit, two former trust officers accuse Citibank of costing the heiress up to $80 million by failing to properly invest her money. The bank has denied the allegation in the case, which is unrelated to the guardian petition filed by the relatives.

The former trust officers met Wednesday with Manhattan prosecutors, who are investigating whether Bock and Kamsler mishandled Clark's finances. No criminal charges have been filed.

Sources say prosecutors will likely look into the sale by Bock and Kamsler of Clark's Stradivarius violin for $6 million and a Renoir painting valued at $23 million.