Empty Mansions

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 thatthe 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 practicalnurse, received a bitmore 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 Hadassah 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