PORTLAND, Maine — A Maine art museum has won a $4.6 million court award after alleging a deceased benefactor’s caretaker manipulated her into removing the museum from her will.
The Portland Press Herald reports the jury was unanimous in its finding that Annemarie Germain coerced Eleanor Potter, a late benefactor of the Portland Art Museum, into making the change in her estate.
The museum’s lawyer, Thimi Mina, says the 89-year-old signed an estate plan making the museum a benefactor of her estate before she died in early 2015.
But shortly afterward Potter fired the lawyers who drew up her initial plan and signed a new will naming Germain her sole beneficiary.
Mina says the change in the will deprived the museum of $3.3 million of art and cash from Potter.
The Associated Press
