http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news ... state?liteNEW YORK — With one month until trial, settlement negotiations are being held to divide up the $300 million estate of reclusive heiress Huguette Clark. Although her last will and testament stated emphatically that none of her copper fortune should go to her distant relatives, most of whom she never met, the family would receive millions if a deal is struck.
A settlement is not at all certain, and the negotiations have been contentious and complicated, said several of the 60 attorneys involved in the case.
A jury trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 17 in Surrogate's Court in Manhattan, pitting Clark’s relatives against the beneficiaries of her will: a charitable foundation, a hospital, Clark's multimillionaire private-duty registered nurse, a goddaughter, attorney, accountant, doctor and several employees.
This is a shame. All that money wasted on lawyers and paper shuffling.
What always amazes me is how quickly we an get ourselves back in time. What I mean is, Huguette Clark just died in 2011, 2 years ago. She was born in 1906, and was the youngest child of the amazingly virile William A. Clark, a copper magnate and former US Senator. William A. Clark, however, was born in 1839. Which means that we are only 2 lifetimes away from a guy who witnessed events before the US Civil War -- in the 1840s. A man who would have had a living recollection of Abraham Lincoln. A man who might have heard John Quincy Adams speak.
It's just weird to contemplate.
