Richard Pryor’s Millions Go to Caregiver – Secret Wife
Richard Pryor’s widow, Jennifer Lee, and one of his daughters, Elizabeth, have been warring in the courts over his estate since 2005.
Pryor was a well-known comedian and actor. He was married seven times to five different women. He and Jennifer married for the first time in 1981 and divorced in 1982. They married again in secret in 2001.
In the mid-1980s, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Towards the end of his life, Jennifer became his primary caretaker. Pryor died in 2005.
His daughter Elizabeth did not learn of Pryor’s remarriage until sometime after her father’s death. Elizabeth first tried to petition for annulment of Pryor’s marriage, alleging fraud and undue influence.
If she had been successful in getting the court to void the marriage, she may have succeeded in barring Jennifer’s claim to Pryor’s estate under the California law that prohibits caretakers from becoming beneficiaries.
The law exists to prevent caretakers from exercising undue influence over their elderly and infirm clients to gain access to their fortunes.
This case breaks new ground because of the issue of the fact Pryor was married, but that the marriage was not public, thereby making it impossible for anyone to know of or challenge the marriage as a product of undue influence or incapacity on the part of Pryor.
The court has now said that it’s too late to challenge a marriage after death. This looks like a road map to ripping off the elderly or infirm – just marry them in secret and keep it quiet until after they are dead.
James D. Perry
Tags: blended families, elder abuse scams, estates, wills
