The Phantom of Fifth Avenue: The Mysterious Life and Scandalous Death of Heiress Huguette Clark

by Meryl Gordon

  On September 6, 2007, Kamsler had been arrested and charged with exchanging sexually explicit e-mails with a fifteen-year-old girl in an AOL chat room. As the Riverdale Press story noted, the “girl” was an undercover cop; this was a sex sting. Kamsler used an e-mail address that was not even remotely incognito for an accountant trolling for underage girls: IRV1040@aol.com.

  Freed on $20,000 bond, Kamsler was forced to resign from the presidency of his temple, Congregation Shaarei Shalom. A law enforcement officer who investigated the case recalls, “He was really nasty and domineering, very explicit about what he would do to these girls.” Yet the official also noted that Kamsler “wanted a ‘girlfriend’ experience. He wanted a more refined girl who would dress up a little bit and meet him in a hotel.” Newspaper photos show Kamsler’s wife, Judi, at his side for the court hearings.

  Just three weeks before the Corcoran party, Kamsler pled guilty on October 2 to attempting to disseminate indecent material to a minor. (Sentenced several months later, he received a $5,000 fine and five years probation, and was required to register as a sex offender. He received a dispensation from the judge to continue to practice as an accountant.) Karine had been horrified by the prospect of sitting near Kamsler at the Clark reunion. Now she asked Carla and Ian: did they think Tante Huguette’s finances should be handled by a convicted felon?

  “Carla and I were pretty much speechless,” Ian recalls. “I’m a pretty jaded guy, but this was horrifying.”

  But this was not the first time that he and Carla had wondered whether anything was amiss with Huguette’s financial affairs. Five years earlier, Ian had seen an article in the New York Times announcing that Sotheby’s was auctioning off a Renoir, Dans Les Roses (Madame Leon Clapisson), a portrait of an aristocratic Parisian in a garden. The owner was listed as Mrs. Huguette M. Clark. Ian alerted Carla, and they went to Sotheby’s together for a closer look. It was a bonding experience, cementing their mutual Clark roots and trying to satisfy their mutual curiosity about their relative.

  “It took us by surprise that this painting was up for sale,” Carla said. “Why is this huge painting, very valuable painting, being sold? What’s going on? A woman who is of a substantial asset base, the daughter of Senator Clark, why is it being sold now?” (The Renoir was purchased for $23.5 million by casino owner Steve Wynn.) Carla fired off a letter to Dare Hartwell, a Corcoran curator, writing, “We were as shocked as anyone by the sale and she must have been truly horrified to see her name in print.”

  Carla had also had a disconcerting back-and-forth with David Levy, the Corcoran’s former director, who mentioned that Huguette’s contributions to the museum had dropped substantially. He had heard that she had given a large sum of money instead to an Israeli project to help out Wallace Bock’s daughter. (Carla would later learn that at Bock’s behest, Huguette, who was Catholic, had donated $1.85 million to build a security system in Efrat, Israel.) David Levy wrote Carla an e-mail: “In truth, I’ve had some disturbing thoughts about the whole matter and in particular, Mrs. Clark’s relationship to Wallace Bock, the current lawyer, who may have his own agenda (which would be a big legal no-no.)”

  Carla reported this development to her mother and to her uncle Lewis Hall, but both urged caution. “I brought this to the family’s attention and the answer was… if Mrs. Clark wanted to give to Israel, it’s her free will to give to Israel and it’s none of our business,” Carla recalls. “They advised me not to speak to anybody and to respect Mrs. Clark’s privacy.”

  But this new information—that Huguette’s accountant was a convicted sex offender—was impossible to ignore. Sitting in Karine’s living room, the family members strategized over how to proceed. They had no proof of any wrongdoing, but their questions were multiplying by the second. Was she in good health and of sound mind, or was someone else making financial decisions on her behalf? Was she well cared for? As the meeting broke up, they agreed to do more research and make a plan.

  Although Ian Devine’s great-grandmother Mary and Huguette had been half sisters, he had never met the oldest living Clark. He sent her two cards in the 1970s that went unanswered. Now Ian went home and searched online for information about Kamsler. What turned up was odd. A friend of the accountant had posted purported advice from Kamsler about the repercussions of an upcoming tax law change. As Ian recalls, the quotes “seemed to indicate that Irving Kamsler was in favor of getting clients to agree to be kept on life support, kept alive by any means possible, until 2010, when estate taxes dropped to zero because of a quirk in the law.” These kinds of comments were actually common in accounting circles at the time because of the oddities of the 2001 Bush tax cut. (The family of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner saved an estimated $600 million in federal taxes because he died in 2010, rather than a year earlier or later.) Karine had found the same online reference to Kamsler’s supposed thoughts about estate taxes. The trio worried that Huguette might be in physical danger.

  Unaware that the Clark relatives were marshaling their forces against him, Irving Kamsler went to Beth Israel Hospital to tell Huguette about the reunion. At 102, she remained mentally sharp, although she suffered from severe hearing loss. She was capable of having a conversation if people stood near her good left ear; familiar voices were easier for her to understand. Kamsler portrayed himself as acting as her champion at the event, challenging her family members on her behalf. Brutally honest, he told Huguette that in his opinion, her relatives were ingrates: “I was upset on your behalf that the family diagram and tree didn’t have your name on it.” For Huguette, this brought back painful memories of being treated dismissively by her half siblings in the 1930s and ’40s. Kamsler did tell her that many relatives had expressed interest in her, but the accountant insisted that he had been circumspect. As he recalls, “She was glad that I had gone to represent her but upset that I had gotten into a tiff with Carla.”

  Carla Hall called Wallace Bock to complain that Kamsler had been rude at the reunion, saying that she was “upset and concerned.” Bock recalls, “I tried to gloss it over and smooth it out.” Carla asked Bock to arrange a call between Huguette and her mother, Erika—the women had not spoken in several years—and he turned her down. Carla then talked things over with her mother, who decided to make the case herself. On November 24, Erika Hall phoned Wallace Bock to reiterate her request to speak to Huguette and received an equally frosty response. “He was very noncommittal and closed the door,” says Erika Hall. “That was the feeling, you had the door shut in to your face.”

  Bock insists that he was only following Huguette’s instructions. “Mrs. Clark wasn’t talking to anyone on the telephone. She wouldn’t talk to any strangers,” he said. “One of the problems was her hearing. People had to shout at her, and she didn’t enjoy the conversations anymore.”

  Erika was so angry that she wrote to Corcoran director Paul Greenhalgh, complaining about Bock and describing Kamsler’s criminal conviction. “As you may have heard, several of us are very disturbed and worried about the condition and financial situation of Huguette Clark,” she wrote. “After meeting the Kamslers, this became very apparent… We are exploring what legal rights we have and if there could be ‘elder abuse.’ ”

  But the museum officials already knew about the accountant’s legal troubles. “Irving came to us personally and confessed he had this conviction,” Greenhalgh says. His reaction was that Kamsler had used poor judgment in one part of his life, but there was no evidence that he had done anything wrong in a professional context. Greenhalgh decided this should be seen as an isolated incident, explaining in an interview with me, “As far as I was concerned, it had nothing to do with the family and it was done, over and finished.”

  Feeling increasingly frustrated, Carla and Ian decided to take direct action and actually go visit Huguette Clark. One relative mentioned that Huguette had supposedly been at Doctors Hospital in the 1990s, which had been taken over by Beth Israel. A telephone operator at Beth Israel confirmed to Ian t
hat they did have a patient with the right name. He insists that they wanted “to make sure that our aunt was not being kept alive by artificial means in some inhumane fashion.”

  Before heading to the hospital, Carla asked for advice from one of the few family members who had been in touch with Huguette. California Realtor Paul Clark Newell Jr., a descendant of William Andrews Clark’s younger sister Ella, had been working for a decade on an unpublished biography of Senator Clark. He had interviewed Huguette, although they had last spoken four years earlier in 2004. The go-between who arranged his calls was Suzanne Pierre, the widow of Huguette’s physician and the heiress’s best friend.

  At Carla’s behest, Newell called Suzanne Pierre, who told him that Huguette was “well taken care of” and was “always in a good mood.” Newell then sent Carla a lengthy e-mail, describing the conversation and cautioning Carla to keep her distance.

  She said also that Huguette doesn’t get out much anymore—which seems to suggest that she may leave the hospital from time to time… Who knows? Perhaps she’s passed you unrecognized while shopping at Macy’s? My conclusion is that Huguette is simply an unusual person… for reasons which we may never fully understand she has chosen to further insulate herself from nearly everyone…

  Newell summarized what he had learned about Huguette’s family history on her mother’s side—that she had no living relatives—and wrote that Huguette’s attorney, Wallace Bock, had been consistently “pleasant” to him. Newell recalled that Huguette had been alert and lucid during their last conversation. But the Realtor noted that he was not privy to information about her finances.

  None of this addresses your concern as to whether she is getting the best financial counsel and that her assets are being managed ethically and responsibly. But absent compelling indications to the contrary, I don’t see how you can probe this issue… Further, there is the question as to who has the necessary “standing” to file a complaint or seek an investigation, and on what grounds???…

  I feel that calling at the hospital is not a good idea, that your chances of a friendly reception there are from slim to none and that such “good will” as you may now enjoy vis-à-vis Huguette might be irreparably damaged by making an unwelcome approach… Fond regards, Paul

  The bright blue sign over the entryway at Beth Israel Medical Center looks garish against the backdrop of the sweeping white concrete columns of the silolike structure, which sits on the busy corner of First Avenue and Sixteenth Street. Inside the bustling ten-floor, 1,100-bed hospital, one serene third-floor area has been set aside to cater to well-to-do patients. The suites offer views overlooking Stuyvesant Square, concierge service, flat-screen televisions, fluffy bathrobes, unrestricted visiting hours, and in-room sleep sofas for family members. “The unit is more reminiscent of a luxury hotel than a hospital,” notes the facility’s promotional material. Nonetheless, this teaching hospital, located in a noisy commercial neighborhood, lacks the cachet of its Upper East Side competitors.

  Founded in 1890 as a clinic for poor Jewish immigrants working in the sweatshops of the Lower East Side and living in tenements, Beth Israel was for many decades a charity hospital. From that inauspicious beginning, the hospital has morphed into a busy urban modern medical facility with such gritty units as a methadone clinic for drug addicts. This is not the kind of place where William Andrews Clark could have imagined one of his descendants spending the night, even in an emergency. If by some accident of fate an heiress to one of the great American fortunes was admitted to Beth Israel, the obvious place for her would be the VIP floor, where a chef creates gourmet meals and suites begin at $450 per night on top of regular hospital costs.

  On Friday, December 5, 2008, Ian and Carla arrived at the hospital and headed toward the upscale third-floor wing. But Huguette Clark was not there. Instead, William Clark’s youngest child was right around the corner in the Karpas Pavilion, down a dreary corridor to Room 3K01, next to a utility closet. Huguette’s room had an old-fashioned radiator with peeling paint and a window overlooking the industrial air-conditioning unit.

  Ian and Carla knocked on the door. The private nurse on duty, Christie Ysit, a Filipino immigrant, came out to greet them. Christie was chatty and told them that Huguette was sleeping but was doing well for her age. The nurse reported that Huguette still had a good appetite and was able to get up and walk around the room, albeit with assistance. Looking for an excuse to enter, Carla seized on a friendly mention of religion. “I asked if I could go in and give her a blessing,” Carla said. “Ian and I entered the room. She was sleeping peacefully.” They stayed for scarcely a minute, standing at the foot of Huguette’s bed. Ysit suggested that if they wanted more information, they might want to return the following day to talk to Huguette Clark’s primary nurse, Hadassah Peri.

  A Filipino immigrant married to an Israeli cabdriver, Hadassah Peri was so devoted to her patient that she sometimes put in twelve-hour days taking care of Huguette. Her own children complained that the nurse was never home. Her maiden name had been Gicela Oloroso, but after moving to New York and marrying Daniel Peri, she had converted to Judaism and changed her name. Hadassah’s native language was Tagalog, and although she had lived in the United States since 1972, she still spoke in fractured English, with lapses in grammar and awkward sentence structure.

  At Beth Israel, the doctors were aware that the patient and her chief nurse were unusually close. “Mrs. Peri was very caring, and she couldn’t do enough for Mrs. Clark,” says Dr. Jack Rudick, a surgeon, adding that the heiress “related to her as her very best friend.” Every night when Hadassah returned to her home in the unfashionable Brooklyn neighborhood of Manhattan Beach, within minutes after she walked in the door she would get a phone call from her patient. Huguette wanted to make sure the nurse got home safely. Sometimes Hadassah would get another call later in the evening. Huguette wanted to say, “Good night.”

  When Carla and Ian arrived for their second visit to the hospital twenty-four hours later, they were hoping to see Huguette and brought a bouquet of flowers. This time, when they knocked on Huguette’s door, Hadassah Peri came out to speak to them in the hallway. The pint-sized nurse was furious. She told them that Huguette Clark was “very upset” that they had turned up uninvited on Sunday and barged into her room. Carla and Ian could not see into the hospital room but heard Huguette in the background, calling out for Hadassah in a shrill, high-pitched voice. The nurse demanded that they leave the hospital immediately.

  For scions of a WASP family who had attended elite schools—Ian was a product of the Palm Beach Day School, Deerfield Academy, and the University of Pennsylvania; Carla had attended the Ethel Walker boarding school followed by Middlebury College—it was quite a turnabout to be ordered out by a paid-by-the-hour immigrant employee. “We were worried,” says Ian. Carla was startled by the nurse’s behavior, saying, “Hadassah Peri was very belligerent.” These two well-connected New Yorkers had been joking between themselves about feeling like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys as they tried to learn more about Huguette, but this confrontation made them feel like they had stepped into something noir.

  As soon as the uninvited duo left, Hadassah picked up the phone and called Irving Kamsler, who immediately got in touch with Wallace Bock. By the time Carla returned to her Upper West Side office, a threatening e-mail awaited her from Bock, warning her and Ian that if they tried to visit Huguette Clark again, they would be removed by force. “Your attempt to invade her privacy, which she guards so carefully and is guarded so scrupulously by those of us on whom she relies on a daily basis, was not appreciated,” he wrote. “In fact, she was quite disturbed about it.”

  Carla asked to meet with Bock, to explain why they had gone to the hospital. “We had never met but we had been conversing for years and with this e-mail and the situation, we thought it best to sit down face-to-face,” she says. The next day, she and Ian went to Bock’s office on Lexington Avenue. Rather than the gleaming premises of a high-end Manhattan
law firm, the place exuded a frayed-around-the-edges quality, with worn carpeting and furniture.

  A rotund Brooklyn native whose father had worked in the garment business (“He was a schmatta dealer,” Bock says), the lawyer had served in the Army during the Korean War and attended Columbia Law School on the GI Bill. Bock’s original specialty was an obscure area of real estate law. He had shared office space with Huguette’s longtime attorney Donald Wallace, who suffered a serious heart attack in 1997. As a result, Bock took over Huguette Clark’s legal affairs, making himself so indispensable that she did not seek other counsel.

  For Wallace Bock, dealing with the Clark descendants was yet another part of his mandate to shelter his client from outsiders. Huguette Clark had repeatedly told him that she did not want direct contact with these relatives. During a back-and-forth of letters with Clark family members in 2007 about repairs to the William Andrews Clark mausoleum, Bock came away with the strong impression that they were not genuinely interested in Huguette. “I don’t think anyone really inquired other than saying, ‘I didn’t think she was still alive,’ ” he says. Bock has a personality that runs hot and cold: he can be grandfatherly with a wry sense of humor or acerbic and adversarial.

  Given the angry tone of Bock’s e-mail to Carla, she was surprised to discover that in their face-to-face meeting the lawyer was initially quite friendly and open in discussing Huguette’s life, her finances, and her friendships. “We found out about Madame Pierre, that Huguette wrote many checks much to his chagrin,” Carla recalls. “We found out what her days were like.”

  But his tone changed when the duo handed the lawyer a newspaper account of Kamsler’s criminal conviction. “He turned many shades whiter,” says Carla. “We said, ‘Step into the shoes of her father—would you be proud to have a convicted felon representing your daughter?’ ” Bock appeared to them to be unconcerned, saying it was just a sting. “He made the decision to cover on the spot for Kamsler,” says Ian. “I knew in my bones that there was something rotten going on.”