Empty Mansions

by Bill Dedman

  In December 2000: $885,000 for an apartment for Hadassah’s children at the Gatsby, a prewar building on East Ninety-Sixth Street in Manhattan.

  In August 2001: $1,475,097 for a second unit in the Gatsby, because Huguette said Hadassah should have a nicer view of Central Park.

  And, the last, in August 2002: $599,000 for a house on the New Jersey shore, near Long Branch, so the family could take vacations together and so they would have a refuge in case of a terrorist attack, as Huguette had bought her own safe house in Connecticut.

  The Peris, a family of five, now owned seven residences—all but the first apartment had been bought by Huguette. The total that Huguette gave to Hadassah for real estate was $4.3 million. Some of the money was characterized as a loan, which Huguette forgave without any payments being made.

  “I told Madame I have many houses already,” Hadassah said. “Just to maintain this houses means a lot of money.” Huguette responded by also paying the common charges and taxes for the apartments.

  • • •

  The entire Peri family wrote frequent thank-you notes “to our dear Madame Clark.” They said they thought of her like a grandmother or fairy godmother.

  “All these luxuries me and my family enjoyed could never be in reality if not for your support, both spiritual and financial,” the family wrote in a card in March 1998. “I could never forget these wonderful things you have shared to us. I pray to God, that you will be rewarded with good health and long life. Respectfully and gratefully, Daniel, Hadassah, Avi, David and Geula Peri.”

  In other notes, the children told Huguette that their tuition and fees continued to rise.

  Huguette also bought the Peris a used Dodge Caravan minivan, then a new Isuzu. From the gift checks they received from Huguette, the Peris bought a series of other new cars, each one about twice as expensive as the last: a 1998 Lincoln Navigator luxury SUV for $48,000 in cash, a 1999 Hummer for $91,000 in cash, and finally a 2001 Bentley. And not just any Bentley, but an Arnage Le Mans, one of only 150 in the world, for which they paid $210,000 in cash. The former taxi driver Daniel Peri was now driving a Bentley.

  Hadassah said the Bentley was a burden. The fastest four-door sedan in the world wasn’t a practical car in Brooklyn. “To tell you the truth, we never enjoy this car. So expensive to repair. You cannot drive it anywhere. You scared somebody going to bang it.… It’s hell. My kids don’t enjoy it. You are scared somebody going to steal it. I don’t know why we buy this stupidity, you know.” She said she prefers to drive the Lincoln.

  Those automobiles were not enough. In 2001, seventeen-year-old Abraham added to a birthday card he sent to Huguette a thinly disguised plea for new wheels:

  Dearest Madame, I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help you have given us. My development from a child to a young adult, during the past 17 years of my life would not be possible without your care, love, and support. I am graduating from high school on Sunday, June 10, and will be entering New York University in the fall. I am proud to tell you that I am old enough to drive. When I had my orientation at NYU, I had to drive my mother’s car, since the van was stolen. With a big family, it is difficult to commute with only one car.

  Huguette wrote him a check for $5,000.

  The Peri children ran errands for Huguette, finding Japanese art books she asked for and ordering jewelry from Gump’s San Francisco, which she liked to give away to the children of doctors and nurses. Huguette regularly wrote checks to the Peri children. From 1996 through 2011, Abraham received $628,250; his sister, Geula, $621,250; and his younger brother, David, $706,550.

  Hadassah and Huguette had their spats. In late 2004 they had a serious disagreement, and Hadassah finally took some time off. There was a long discussion among Huguette and her circle about whether she should fire Hadassah. But soon Hadassah was back.

  Huguette showed great empathy for any problem Hadassah’s family had. She paid $35,000 in medical bills for Hadassah’s older son. She gave them money for Hadassah’s brother, who had trouble finding work, and paid for breast cancer treatment for his daughter. And when the Peris were audited by the IRS, Huguette paid the $300,000 bill for that, too.

  HUGUETTE’S GIFTS TO THE PERIS IN A SINGLE YEAR

  Just in the year 2003, Huguette wrote thirty-five checks totaling $955,200 to Hadassah and her family, on top of Hadassah’s salary.

  January 3 $45,000 (son David)

  January 13 $45,000

  January 13 $10,000

  January 13 $8,000

  January 13 $40,000 (son Abraham, or Avi)

  January 13 $20,000 (daughter Geula)

  January 14 $35,000 (David)

  February 4 $30,000

  February 4 $8,000

  February 4 $40,000

  March 5 $35,000

  March 13 $8,000

  April 15 $35,000

  May 3 $15,000 (David)

  May 3 $15,000 (Geula)

  May 9 $30,000

  May 9 $30,000

  May 12 $25,000

  July 8 $75,000

  July 18 $25,000

  July 25 $35,000

  August 5 $40,000

  August 5 $6,000

  September 8 $20,000 (Abraham)

  September 8 $20,000 (David)

  September 8 $15,000 (Geula)

  September 14 $7,000

  September 24 $35,000

  October 1 $15,000

  October 27 $10,000

  November 3 $45,000

  December 1 $8,200

  December 3 $35,000

  December 21 $45,000

  December 21 $45,000 (husband Daniel)

  • • •

  Madame Pierre was protective of Huguette, expressing concern to her granddaughter about the gifts Huguette was giving to Hadassah and others. “My grandmother felt that Madame Clark was being solicited by everyone that had any contact with her,” Kati Despretz Cruz said. “Everyone was crying their tale of woe to her.” But Suzanne would never have mentioned this concern to Huguette, Kati said, for that would have been impolite.

  The Pierres also were recipients of Huguette’s generosity. Huguette had regularly given Suzanne checks for $20,000 or $50,000 as gifts, disguised as payment for secretarial services, but in her nineties she stepped up her giving.

  Huguette, who had met Suzanne’s great-grandson, had grown up in a household afraid of a possible kidnapping. She told Suzanne that the boy was so cute that someone might try to kidnap him. She said it wasn’t safe for him and his mother to be living on the second floor of their apartment building on the Upper East Side. She insisted they trade up to an apartment on a higher floor, paying the $610,000 difference.

  On the very same day, Huguette bought two more apartments in the building, one for her day nurse, Hadassah, and one for her night nurse, Geraldine Lehane Coffey, so they could live closer to the hospital. Geraldine, who came to America from Ireland and is a licensed practical nurse, received a bit more than $1 million in gifts from Huguette over the years. “I respected her very much. She respected me,” Geraldine said. “I felt she was very smart, she was strong, she was intelligent, well-traveled. She was a very nice lady.” Geraldine worked seven nights a week, eleven P.M. to seven A.M., at the same salary as Hadassah: $131,040. She said Huguette cut her own hair, bathed herself, and was so healthy that often there was no need to take her temperature. “There was very little nursing to do.”

  The gifts also caused concern among Huguette’s advisers, accountant Irving Kamsler and her new attorney, Wally Bock. (He took over after her longtime attorney Don Wallace had a heart attack in 1997. Wallace died in 2002.) Despite their concerns, Bock and Kamsler were only advisers, always deferential in their conversations and letters. “Certain questions were not asked of Mrs. Clark, or her motives questioned,” Bock said. “She knew what she wanted to do, she made up her mind what to do, and normally you couldn’t change her mind anyhow, and she would get angry if you persisted.” Besides, he thought of Hadassa
h as loyal and devoted to Huguette, and it appeared Huguette was not being pestered for gifts, but would instead seize on any opportunity to be generous.

  Bock explained:

  Somebody would come in and say, “Oh, dear, my sister needs an operation and I can’t afford it.” She would say, “Well, I’ll pay for it.”

  I discussed it with her, and her question was, “Can I afford it?”

  And I would say yes. I would say, “But why don’t you put it into a will rather than giving it now?”

  And she said, “I want to see people enjoy the gifts that I give while I’m alive.” Mrs. Clark was a very smart and astute woman who made up her own mind, decided what she wanted to do, when she wanted to do it. She didn’t ask permission.

  Hadassah said she never asked for any of these gifts. She said she would mention that tuition would be expensive for her daughter at grad school, and then Huguette would insist on paying for it. “Sometimes she gives you checks, you will be amazed, it is not the amount you want, it is more than the amount you want. And it happens many, many times. That’s how Madame is.… Madame insist we have to get this.… I did not ask for it.”

  Hadassah disputed the idea that mentioning family issues was her way of asking Huguette for gifts. “For twenty years what do you do if you stay in the room? We always talk about our lives, we talk about anything, you know, and she always ask my family.… Daily talk, of course. It is like a family. I am the nurse of Madame, I am very their friend, I dedicate my life to Madame. For almost fourteen years I stayed more in Madame room than in my house. I work twelve hours.… My husband is a mother and father while I’m working with Madame. Family vacation, I miss, when the kids were growing up. Because she never wants me to take off. She is uncomfortable with other people. I gave my life for her.”

  Hadassah’s husband, Daniel, received $1,503,813. He ran errands for Huguette and stayed home with the kids while his wife worked seven days a week. With the money his wife was making, he said, they were in too high a tax bracket. “Figure it out. I have to stop working, because whatever I make is going to pay taxes and that’s it.”

  Kamsler and Bock cautioned Huguette repeatedly about making excessive gifts, citing the federal gift taxes that would be due. Bock warned Huguette in a letter: She had “failed to understand the consequences of your continued course of action.” But Bock hardly saw her. Communicating with his client was like the children’s game of fishing, where the player throws a line with a clothespin attached over a curtain. Usually when he pulled the line, she didn’t bite, or she would say she’d think about it.

  • • •

  Before he died in 1992, Dr. Jules Pierre wrote a private letter to his former patient Huguette. In French, he outlined his financial situation. With scant income from a dwindling trust and Social Security, he told Huguette that his wife, Suzanne, would soon be a widow and would probably be unable to keep their Park Avenue apartment. He asked Huguette to lend her money until she could sell the apartment.

  “Please believe me when I say that I know what I am talking about when I think about the serious problems that my wife will have to face,” Dr. Pierre wrote. “Please receive, dear Madame and great friend, my very affectionate thoughts. Your faithful friend—ever grateful for everything you do for us. Pierre.”

  His request was answered seven years later, in 1999, when Huguette arranged, through her attorney, to sell two paintings at Sotheby’s so she could offer more gifts to her friends. One was Monet’s Three Poplars in Gray Weather. It brought $10 million, which Huguette gave to Madame Pierre.

  Talking about Huguette in her apartment on a Saturday afternoon in 2010, Madame Pierre was easily distracted by the television, and the conversation lagged. As she was looking at photos of Huguette, her face brightened. In the kitchen, her caretaker explained that Madame Pierre had Alzheimer’s disease, as her son confirmed.

  Because of Huguette’s generosity, Suzanne Pierre could afford round-the-clock care until she died in February 2011 at age eighty-nine. Because of Huguette, Suzanne had been able to remain in her home until the end.

  • • •

  Huguette offered the second painting, Cézanne’s Earthenware Jug, to Hadassah. The nurse said she didn’t have any use for an old painting, so Huguette included it in the 1999 sale at Sotheby’s. It sold for $15 million, and Huguette said she wanted to give it all to Hadassah.

  Huguette’s lawyer and accountant were aghast. The tax implications were astounding. Giving away $25 million to Hadassah and Madame Pierre would cost Huguette another $28 million in taxes. Bock and Kamsler told Huguette she would have to sell other assets just to pay the taxes, so she improvised.

  She immediately gave Hadassah two checks for $5 million each—along with an IOU, in the form of a third check, also for $5 million, undated.

  “She told me to hold it,” Hadassah said, until the Connecticut property was sold. Bock and Kamsler weren’t told about this check, but Hadassah made an unusual note of it in Huguette’s medical chart, citing the $5 million that “she promised.”

  Huguette also may have profited from this transaction. She did not like hiring new people. An employee carrying a well-worn, undated check for $5 million would be unlikely to seek other employment.

  • • •

  Huguette’s man Friday, Chris Sattler, also started receiving gifts. He said Huguette instructed him to open the large safe in the walk-in closet in Apartment 12W. He had to get a locksmith to drill the lock. There he found her stash of everyday jewelry. He brought the boxes from Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels to the hospital in a shopping bag. Huguette enjoyed looking it all over and gave him a piece. Then she gave Hadassah a piece, “and it just snowballed,” Chris said.

  Chris, who is Catholic, received from Huguette a crucifix, a $7,000 Cartier antique diamond and ruby cross pendant on an Art Deco diamond and platinum chain, and other pieces, in all worth $27,000. He said he didn’t think to refuse the gifts, which were documented through Huguette’s attorney after an appraisal.

  To Hadassah she gave eighty-four pieces of jewelry, appraised at $667,300, as well as two antique harpsichords, a clavichord, and fifteen antique dolls.

  And to Hadassah’s younger son, David, Huguette gave an even larger gift. When he had been a schoolboy, David played the violin for Huguette in her room. “And Madame said, ‘Someday I have something for you, but you are too young,’ ” Hadassah said. “ ‘When you are responsible to have, I have something for you.’ ” Now she gave him her third-best violin by Stradivari, worth about $1.2 million.

  “I told Madame, he doesn’t play anymore,” Hadassah said, “but she insist he will go back to learn again.… I think one time she told me she played the violin for twenty-one years, but she never really like it, but she just did it for her mother.”

  Counting all the gifts, Hadassah and her family received at least $31,906,074.81 in cash and property from Huguette while she was alive.

  Of course, one must keep that amount in perspective. If Huguette were willing to keep selling property, she could have afforded ten Hadassahs.

  Hadassah was asked whether she questioned the ethics of accepting large gifts from her patient. Hadassah showed no hint of embarrassment or doubt, only entitlement, saying she didn’t know of any rules, and besides, she was an independent contractor, not a hospital employee. “I cannot recall any paper that I am not allowed to receive any such gift.”

  What about the ethics of the nursing profession?

  “Never come to my mind.”

  KEEP THE BAD PEOPLE OUT

  IT WAS TIME to dig in their heels. On October 26, 2001, Huguette’s advisers wrote separate letters to her, a coordinated warning about her excessive generosity. Her significant gifts in the past year had depleted her cash, and her income was no longer sufficient to pay her expenses.

  “You will have to seriously consider,” attorney Bock wrote, “the sale of additional assets in order to raise the cash necessary to meet all of these obligations.” />
  Five days later, Bock sent his client a solicitation for a gift.

  Wallace “Wally” Bock, born in 1932, is a quiet Orthodox Jewish American with ties to Israel that reach back long before there was a State of Israel. His parents, before World War I, were among the founders of the Mizrachi religious movement in the United States to build a Jewish state. His mother was personal secretary to the world leader of that movement. His brother was imprisoned by the British for helping transport Jewish immigrants to Palestine.

  Now Bock’s daughter and her husband were making a return to Israel (in Hebrew, aliyah, or “ascent”). They were living with Wally’s grandchildren and a great-grandchild in an Israeli settlement town called Efrat, in the Judaean Mountains of the disputed West Bank, just south of Jerusalem. The town was raising money for a sophisticated, state-of-the-art security system, including technology to monitor suspicious vehicles and alert military forces.

  Though Bock had never met his client, Huguette called often to issue orders, and whenever she saw Mideast turmoil on CNN or in The New York Times, she would call to check on his family.

  Bock sent Huguette the town’s fund-raising brochure for the security system. He explained that there had been several shooting attacks on the town and that one of its synagogues had been desecrated. “As you well know,” Bock wrote to his client, “I have never sought help from you for myself personally or for any cause that I may have been involved in. However, in view of your expressed interest in what is happening in Israel and your concern for my family there, I am taking the liberty of asking your financial assistance in this project. I will of course leave it to your discretion as to the amount, if any, that you may wish to contribute.”

  Huguette had made gifts to her previous attorneys. She gave Don Wallace $130,000 in French mechanical dolls, so many that he had to build extra shelves in his house. When Wallace’s secretary wrote to Huguette, saying she was moving to Europe to launch a singing career, Huguette sent her a check for $10,000. But Bock had never received a gift, other than a dollhouse for a granddaughter. Bock later said that he had expected Huguette might donate $5,000 or $10,000.