A federal jury awarded crime writer Patricia Cornwell nearly US$51 million on Tuesday in her lawsuit against her former financial management company and a former principal in the firm.
The author, best known for her series of novels featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta, claimed that Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP was negligent in handling her finances and cost her millions in losses or unaccounted-for revenue.
Lawyers for the New York firm and former principal Evan Snapper said there was no money missing from Cornwell’s accounts. They blamed losses on the economic downturn and what they called Cornwell’s extravagant lifestyle, which included Ferraris, helicopters and a temporary apartment in New York City she rented for US$40,000 per month.
Cornwell, 56, testified that Anchin moved her from a conservative management strategy to an aggressive one without her permission. She said she fired the firm in 2009 after discovering that her net worth was a little under US$13 million, despite having eight-figure earnings in each of the previous four years.
Cornwell said the firm caused her to miss a book deadline for the first time in her career when it failed to find her a suitable place to write after renovation work on her house in Concord went on much longer than expected.
“This was very destabilizing. I really lost my ability to focus and concentrate. I did not know what the book was about anymore,” Cornwell said.
The lawsuit said the missed deadline caused Cornwell to lose one year’s income: about US$15 million in advances and commission.
Cornwell said she was thrilled with the verdict.
“God bless justice,” she said.
Lawyers for the firm and Snapper portrayed Cornwell as a demanding client who relied on them for everything, from bringing her clothes to the tailor to arranging care for her mother.
“I’m very disappointed,” Snapper said after the verdict.
On the stand, he strongly denied Cornwell’s allegations.
“I did not steal any money from anyone,” he said. “The money was there.”
Frank Schettino, a managing partner at Anchin, Block & Anchin, said the firm plans to explore its legal options, including appealing the verdict.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema