The best-selling crime novelist brought the case against Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP and its former principal, Evan H Snapper. She had paid the company about $40,000 per month for four years to handle her finances.A federal court jury has awarded Patricia Cornwell $50.9 million in damages, finding her former financial company cheated her, her wife, and her company out of tens of millions of dollars. A federal judge could increase the award.
But the author claimed the company had mismanaged about $89 million of her money, improperly investing it and allegedly misappropriating her funds.
She alleged that, on one occasion, Mr Snapper used her money to write a $5,000 cheque for his daughter as a Bat Mitzvah gift, purportedly a gift from Cornwell.
She also alleged the company had made unauthorized, illegal donations to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on her behalf.
Mr Snapper has admitted doing this, but told jurors it was on behalf of Cornwell and her friends. He is currently on probation for this offense. (Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins $51m lawsuit against accountants)
For the last seven weeks, Boston has had an uncensored view of Cornwell’s life as it has played out at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse, after she sued Snapper and his company for negligence in the handling of her finances."Outraged" is exactly the word for it. Although Patricia Cornwell and Staci Ann Gruber never discovered exactly how much money Ms. Cornwell had lost, they knew she had made "more than $89 million in her four years with Anchin, only to find she was worth little more than what she had when the relationship began".
She has been forced to lay out her lavish lifestyle and her struggles with depression and bipolar disorder. With the words of a writer, she speaks of how she “has been eating arsenic for weeks,” and how “a whole mountain of rocks has been lifted off me.”
But by Tuesday afternoon the fight — an “autopsy” of her life, as she put it — had been worth it, she said. She had felt it was her responsibility to bring legal action, knowing there are people who would not have the resources to do it if they were in such a position, playing a leadership role as her heroine, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, would have.
“I tend to be outraged by injustices,” said Cornwell, 56. “It’s about as complicated as one of my novels; that’s for sure.” (Author Patricia Cornwell awarded $50.9m in suit)
If you would like to read more about the verdict, here are a few articles:
Link to the written verdict
Author Patricia Cornwell awarded $50.9m in suit, Boston Globe
Crime writer Patricia Cornwell wins $51m lawsuit against accountants, The Telegraph
Author Patricia Cornwell wins $51M in suit against management firm, National Post
Patricia Cornwell wins $50m in damages, The Guardian
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