A TWO-YEAR battle over the late tobacco heiress Doris Duke's £1 billion estate has ended, with a judge signing a settlement that gives £3 million to the Irish born butler who was accused of plotting to kill her.
Mr Bernard Lafferty will drop other claims and resign as co executor of Ms Duke's estate under the agreement approved by New York Judge Eve Preminger.
Mr Lafferty (49), is to receive the £300,000 a year that Ms Duke's will left him, as well as the £3 million executor's fee.
In addition to removing Mr Lafferty from the estate, the agreement increases its number of board trustees and halves the fee that each of the seven will receive to about £85,000 a year.
The approval comes three months after Judge Preminger rejected the first proposed settlement and more than two years after Mr Lafferty was accused of conspiring to kill the dying heiress with morphine.
Ms Duke, the only child of American Tobacco Co founder, James Buchanan Duke, died aged 80 in October 1993 at her Beverly Hills, California, home. She had suffered a stroke a few months earlier.
Ms Duke's will left more than £1 billion to charity. She gave Mr Lafferty $4.5 million (£2.9 million) outright, $500,000 a year for life and almost complete control over the rest of her estate. He named US Trust Company as co-executor.
Judge Preminger removed them both in May 1995, after saying Mr Lafferty had squandered thousands of estate dollars on himself, and that US Trust had failed to control his activities. But an appeal court overturned that ruling.
Mr Lafferty, wearing earrings, with his blond pony tail tied back by a black velvet ribbon, left the courtroom before yesterday's hearing.
After the settlement was approved, Mr Lafferty said the only way to end the litigation was for him to resign his board of trustees seat.
"Since it will enable her charitable purposes to be fulfilled, I have agreed to take this step," Mr Lafferty said.
Under the agreement, Dr Harry Demopoulos, Ms Duke's former physician and co-executor in an earlier will, will drop his challenge to the latest will signed on April 5th, 1993.
Dr Demopoulos had accused Mr Lafferty of wielding undue influence over Ms Duke and had supported a nurse's claim that the butler had conspired to kill her.
The Los Angeles district attorney's office has said it was investigating the circumstances of Ms Duke's death.
The agreement allows distribution of Ms Duke's assets to charities as she intended, said the state Deputy Attorney General, Mr John Carley.