Patricia Cornwell's wife testifies in Boston suit alleging mgt. firm, ex-principal bilked author of tens of millions

Patricia Cornwell. Photo: Wikipedia

Cornwell's fictional medical examiner, Dr. Kay Scarpetta, is the subject of one of the best-selling crime novel series ever written. The author, with the help of testimony from her spouse, Staci Gruber, is suing her Anchin, Block & Anchin, LLP a New York accounting and wealth management firm, and Evan Snapper, a former principal in the firm for negligence and breach of contract, claiming millions in investment losses and unaccounted for revenues during their 4½-year relationship.
     Cornwell also alleges that Snapper gave her shady real ­estate advice, advice that seemed to benefit his own associates, including the son of the actor Robert DeNiro, whom he referred to as Bobby DeNiro and caused her to lose additional millions in real estate.

     Cornwell fired the firm after discovering in July 2009 that the net worth of her and her company, despite having eight-figure earnings per year during the previous four years, was a little under $13 million, the equivalent of only one year's net income. She also claims in the lawsuit that Anchin had borrowed several million dollars, including mortgages for property and a loan for the purchase of a helicopter, and had lost millions by moving her from a conservative investment strategy to high-risk without her permission.
     Cornwell, 56, says problems caused by Anchin and Snapper were so distracting that they caused her to miss a book deadline for the first time in her career and cost her $15 million in non-recoverable advances and commissions.
     Lawyers for Anchin and Snapper deny Cornwell's claims. During opening statements at the trial, attorney James Campbell described Cornwell as "a demanding client" who "tends to push off responsibility and assign blame when things go off track."
     "I do what I do when and how I do it," she allegedly wrote in an email to Snapper read by Campbell to the jury.
     Anchin and Snapper claim there is no money missing from Cornwell's accounts, that any investment losses were caused by the financial and housing crisis at the time, and that the fees they charged her were reasonable for the services they provided, including everything from business management to bringing Cornwell's clothes to the tailor to arranging care for her mother.
     "Where did the money go? Ms. Cornwell and Dr. Gruber spent the money," Campbell said...
     Cornwell, who is expected to testify during the trial, says in the lawsuit that Anchin borrowed money in her name for real estate investments ventures without telling her. She said she also found checks written for expenses she never authorized, including a $5,000 check for a bat mitzvah gift to Snapper's daughter from Cornwell.

     Cornwell, a bipolar former newspaper reporter, has sold in excess of 100 million books. She worked for the chief medical examiner's office in Virginia before the first novel in her Scarpetta series was published in the early 1990s.
       Although intensely private, Cornwell was involved in a messy scandal in the early 1990s, in which her then-paramour, Margo Bennett, a married FBI agent, was almost murdered by her FBI agent husband in a frame-up scheme which also involved the abduction of Bennet's pastor.