ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 11, 1996 TAG: 9604110062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: The New York Times
A tentative settlement was announced Wednesday that would end the war over Doris Duke's $1.2 billion estate and pay Bernard Lafferty, her high-spending, ponytailed butler, millions of dollars to give up his role in overseeing her fortune.
Lafferty, who has admitted he is a barely literate alcoholic and whom Duke wrote into her will less than a year before she died, has agreed to resign as co-executor of the estate and relinquish a powerful seat on the board of the charitable foundation that would control Duke's wealth. But Lafferty, 46, would not give up any money: He would be paid his executor's fee of $4.5 million, plus $500,000 a year for the rest of his life, according to the proposed settlement submitted Wednesday in Surrogate's Court in Manhattan.
If the settlement is approved by the court, it would end more than two years of litigation over the estate of the late tobacco heiress, who left most of her fortune to charity. The will has been challenged by one of Duke's doctors, former employees and others, and the bitter battle has led to charges and countercharges, including an affidavit contending that Lafferty and a doctor hastened Duke's death with a drug overdose.
After Duke died in 1993 at the age of 80, Lafferty moved into her mansions and traveled around in her chauffeured Cadillac and her private Boeing 737 at estate expense.
LENGTH: Short : 35 linesby CNB