LONDON — Danish-born socialite Claus von Bulow, who was convicted but later acquitted of trying to kill his wealthy wife in two trials that drew intense international attention in the 1980s, has died. He was 92.
Claus von Bulow, who was portrayed by Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons in a film about the attempted murder case, always maintained his innocence. He did not testify at his criminal trials, but did deny wrongdoing under oath in a civil case brought by his stepchildren.
Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, who represented von Bulow and kept in touch with him for decades, said he scrupulously avoided the spotlight. "He lived a good happy life following his acquittal, because he decided to remain in private.
xv. ISBN 0394539036. Dr. Leo Dal Cortivo, chief toxicologist, Office of Suffolk County (New York) Medical Examiner, who provided an affidavit for the new-trial motion and testified for the defense at the second trial. ^ Alan M. Dershowitz (1986). "Dramatis Personae". Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von BĂĽlow Case. New York: Random House. p. xv.
von BĂĽlow, the heiress to a $75 million utilities fortune, went into a coma in December 1979, from which she recovered, and a second, irreversible coma in December 1980. She remained in a vegetative state until her death in 2008.
At the trial in Newport, Rhode Island, BĂĽlow was found guilty and sentenced to 30 years in prison; he appealed, hiring Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz to represent him.
May 25, 2019Claus von BĂĽlow / Date of death
Martha (Sunny) von BĂĽlow, the American heiress who was first married to an Austrian playboy prince and then to a Danish-born man-about-society who was twice tried on charges of attempting to murder her, died Saturday at a nursing home in Manhattan.
To say the least. When Sunny von Bu low's mother Annie-Laurie Aitken died, she left a fortune estimated at nearly $100 million, mainly to Kneissl and von Auersperg. Aitken disinherited her other grandchild, Cosima von Bu low, for siding with her father in the attempted-murder case.
Now known as Cosima Pavoncelli, she lives in London and New York. After the legal wrangling of the 1980s, the two older children founded the Sunny von Bulow National Victim Advocacy Centre and the Sunny von Bulow Coma and Head Trauma Research Foundation.
Sunny von BülowClaus von Bülow / Spouse (m. 1966–1987)
According to sources in the know, the new owner of Clarendon Court is Mark Walter. Walter is the chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, a privately held global financial services firm with more than $310 billion in assets under management and headquarters in Chicago and New York.
92 years (1926–2019)Claus von Bülow / Age at death
Although acquitted, Claus faced a $56m civil suit from his stepchildren. He eventually agreed to divorce Sunny and forfeit any family money, to leave the country and give up all rights to write books or publicise the case, in exchange for Cosima's inheritance, estimated at $30m.
NEW YORK (CNN) -- After spending nearly 28 years in an irreversible coma, heiress and socialite Martha "Sunny" von Bulow died Saturday in a New York nursing home, according to a family statement. She was 76.
49-year-oldClaus Von Bulow was accused of injecting his wife with insulin first in December of 1979, causing a coma from which she revived. Prosecutors said he tried again a year later, on Dec. 21, 1980, and the 49-year-old heiress fell into an irreversible coma.
Claus von Bülow, a Danish-born socialite who was convicted and then acquitted of attempting to murder his wealthy American wife, died in London on Saturday at the age of 92, a family friend confirms to Town & Country. The scandal that would define his life began in December, 1980, when Martha “Sunny” von Bulow ...
Barbara Walters interviewed Von Bulow for 20/20 in 1982. Bob SachaGetty Images. Among those who continued to support him were late-twentieth-century society fixtures like Mercedes Kellogg (now Bass), Doris Duke and Catherine Guinness.
He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. But the accused, who always had the support of Cosima von BĂĽlow, his daughter with Sunny, overturned the judgment on appeal. The highly-publicized retrial was argued by Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, and the case turned the lawyer into a star. His 1985 book about the case, Reversal ...
Subsequently Claus adopted his mother’s maiden name: Bülow. The aristocratic prefix “von” was a later addition; he sometimes claimed was made at Sunny’s behest. Sunny Von Bulow in 1968 in the London home she shared with Von Bulow. Getty Images.
The scandal that would define his life began in December, 1980, when Martha “Sunny” von Bulow (the Philadelphia Main Line heiress to a utilities fortune) was discovered unconscious on the marble floor of a bathroom at their oceanfront estate in Newport, R.I. Martha Sharp Crawford von Auersperg Von Bulow in 1979, ...
How Claus von BĂĽlow Became the Original True Crime Star. Convicted and acquitted of murdering his heiress wife, the Danish socialite, dead at 92, relished his reputation as a debonair criminal. Claus von BĂĽlow, a Danish-born socialite who was convicted and then acquitted of attempting to murder his wealthy American wife, ...
Claus Von Bulow with his and Sunny's daughter, Cosima, in 1983. “The affection and support Cosima felt for her father was unwavering,” a family friend, who asked not to be named, told T&C. “He raised a marvelous woman, full of integrity, loyal but with her eyes open, who unwaveringly thought the world of him.”.
Nast via Getty Images. Claus von Bulow, who was portrayed by Oscar-winner Jeremy Irons in a film about the attempted murder case, always maintained his innocence. He did not testify at his criminal trials, but did deny wrongdoing under oath in a civil case brought by his stepchildren.
Von Bulow, who moved to London after he was cleared, died at his home there on Saturday, his son-in-law, Riccardo Pavoncelli, told The New York Times. Claus Von Bulow in 1984. Michael Norcia/New York Post / Getty Images file.
Dershowitz said von Bulow liked the book, but disliked the movie because it left as an open question whether he was guilty or innocent, while the book came down definitively on von Bulow's side. Von Bulow was born Claus Cecil Borberg in 1926 in Copenhagen.
The prosecution said Claus von Bulow on two occasions injected his wife with insulin in an attempt to aggravate her hypoglycemia and kill her. They said he could not face the financial consequences of a divorce that would cut him off from her millions.
Before the settlement agreement silenced him, von Bulow described the case as a disaster for all concerned. "This was a tragedy and it satisfied all of Aristotle's definitions of tragedy," he told members of the Harvard Law School during a 1986 talk. "Everyone is wounded, some fatally.".
They sued him for $56 million in July 1985, just one month after his acquittal. A settlement was reached two years later in which von Bulow agreed to drop all claims to his wife's fortune, to divorce her, and to refrain from discussing the case or profiting from it.
The tall, aristocratic von Bulow was charged with putting his wife, Martha "Sunny" von Bulow, into an irreversible coma to gain her fortune so he could live with his mistress, a raven-haired soap opera actress. He was convicted of attempted murder in 1982 at a trial in Newport, Rhode Island, that was widely followed with its high society overtones ...