When your ninety two year old mother is worth 40 bill
it's rather disconcerting to be cut out of her will
by lawyers and politicians and others of that ilk
who have more successfully seized for her golden milk.
The daughter, now seeking her to mental state to disparage
says , obviously, "Mother doesn't know her own age"
and while this may well be factually true,
is this, for many women, anything new?
hzl
2/26/15
.... real-life drama, set in an Art Moderne mansion in Neuilly-sur-Seine, an exclusive town west of Paris, features a cast that includes long-serving chambermaids, cooks and butlers who tended to one of the world’s richest women, whom they call “Madame.” There are also high-powered lawyers, advisers and confidants accused of exploiting her fading mental state to plunder cash, artworks, life insurance and a private Seychelles island.
The woman, Liliane Bettencourt, the 92-year-old heir to the L’Oréal cosmetics fortune, lives in the secluded mansion in the shadows of memory — too frail and deaf to attend the trial.
But she has been very much front and center in the courtroom here in southwestern France, where both her lifestyle and her state of mind have been at the heart of the trial, as prosecutors and defense lawyers paint vastly different portraits of Madame.
Was she an ailing widow exploited by sweet-talking predators and, as the prosecutor contends, manipulated “like a marionette”? Or was she a self-confident woman who did what she wanted in the spirit of a well-worn L’Oréal slogan: “Because I’m worth it”?
The trial ended on Wednesday, and a panel of judges said it would announce its verdict on May 28.
In many ways, the case, known to the French as the Bettencourt affair, is the universal story of any wealthy family with an elderly relative who vacillates between independence and vulnerability. But Forbes estimated Mrs. Bettencourt’s fortune at more than $40 billion, making her the second-wealthiest woman in the world.
The prosecutors said her advanced age, the beginnings of dementia and a daily medical regimen of 56 pills, including antidepressants, also invited exploitation. And investigators contend that the schemes were so widespread that they included a political scandal involving a former finance minister seeking cash for the 2007 presidential campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy.
n Case of L'Oréal Heiress, a Private World of Wealth ...
www.nytimes.com/.../liliane-bettencourt-loreal-heir-tri...
The New York Times
L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt's fraud trial rocked after ...
www.dailymail.co.uk/.../France-10-trial-LOreal-heiress-fraud-cas...
Daily Mail
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