VON BULOW, 92
Convicted, acquitted in bid to kill rich wife
Claus von Bulow, the millionaire socialite famously convicted and later acquitted of attempting to murder his heiress wife with insulin injections at their Rhode Island mansion, has died.
He passed away Saturday at his home in London, The New York Times reported, citing son-in-law Riccardo Pavoncelli. He was 92. Von Bulow was indicted for allegedly trying to kill his wealthy wife Martha “Sunny” von Bulow during back-toback Christmas vacations at their Newport home in 1979 and 1980 in an attempt to claim a $14 million inheritance.
Sunny slipped into comas after both holidays and spent nearly three decades in a vegetative state before she died in a nursing home in 2008 at age 76.
Von Bulow was found guilty in a televised 1982 trial and sentenced to 30 years.
He vehemently maintained his innocence and later won an appeal masterminded by Alan Dershowitz, then a professor at Harvard Law School, and future New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who was one of Dershowitz’s students.
Former U.S. Attorney Thomas Puccio led his defense during the second trial which ended with acquittal on all charges in 1985.
His story was the subject of the 1990 movie “Reversal of Fortune” starring Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close that was based on the 1986 book of the same name written by Dershowitz.
Irons won an Academy Award for his complicated portrayal of von Bulow that never fully resolved the question of whether a crime was committed.
In his book, Dershowitz wrote, “This case has everything. It has money, sex, drugs; it has Newport, New York and Europe; it has nobility; it has maids, butlers, a gardener.”
On Thursday, Dershowitz said von Bulow loved his book but hated the film.
“The movie left the issue open, with everyone leaving the theater coming to a different conclusion, and he didn’t like that,” Dershowitz, who remained friends with von Bulow until his death, told the Daily News.
Dershowitz called von Bulow a “fascinating man with a bizarre sense of humor” who took his advice and moved away to Europe to lead a quiet life out of the public eye after his retrial and acquittal.
The lawyer said von Bulow lost his ability to walk during his final years but remained close with his daughter and grandchildren and still took an active interest in theater and opera.
“His whole life has been defined by this accusation, which we were able to disprove in court through use of medical and scientific evidence. But he still went through life with this hanging over his head,” Dershowitz said.