Clark’s ‘next of kin’ found to not exist

Heiress’ phantom ‘family’
Fake names for copper queen and next of kin
Jeane MacIntosh/Ada Calhoun/Dan Mangan
August 31, 2010
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/heiress_phantom_family_krql9Vsdz7fNswgUsdp47L
Her “kin-folk” are ghosts.

The 104-year-old copper heiress whose lawyer and accountant are under investigation for allegedly mishandling her vast wealth lives under an assumed name in a Manhattan hospital — while the “next of kin” listed for her there do not exist, The Post has learned.

Reclusive eccentric Huguette Clark even has a “spouse” listed as the person to contact in the event of an emergency at Beth Israel Medical Center — but she never remarried after her two-year marriage to William Gower ended in 1930, sources said.

Hospital records claim that her husband, “Jose River,” can be reached “c/o Justina Batien, 160 Water St., 23rd Floor.” A check of that address in Manhattan and Brooklyn found that both are commercial buildings. Staffers there have no record of either name.

There is no record of a “Justina Batien” living anywhere in the United States.

An alternative address for “River” is an empty lot on Pacific Street in Brooklyn.

A second “next of kin” listed for Clark, who has lived at Beth Israel for years, is “Helen Ponce,” whose address is listed on Avenue C. But a check of that address in both Manhattan and Brooklyn found no evidence Ponce lived at either place. And the phone number attached to Ponce’s name is actually a Key Foods grocery.

The names of Clark’s closest living relatives, Manhattan residents Carla Hall and Ian Devine, do not appear on her records as next of kin. Both have declined to comment on Clark’s case.

The hospital, too, declined to comment.

Manhattan elder-care lawyer Daniel Fish said the list of Clark’s next of kin raises eyebrows. “You just wonder how that information got into the medical record,” Fish said. “My surprise is, that is usually not incorrect information.”

The revelations about Clark’s records come a week after the Manhattan DA launched a probe into how her $500 million fortune has been managed by her lawyer, Wallace Bock, and her accountant, Irving Kamsler.

“Bock and Kamsler have always kept the family members away from any direct contact,” Clark’s cousin, Sarah Bond, told The Post. “I hope this will shed real transparency about what has been going on with Huguette’s care.”

Michael McKeon, a spokesman for Bock, said, “We’re not going to discuss [Clark's] private issues, and everything that’s been done has been in done in accordance with her private wishes.”

Additional reporting by Matthew Nestel and Frank Rosario