FILE - In this Feb. 6, 1952, file photo, a masked former Polish soldier testifies to house committee on Katyn Forest massacre in Washington. With him at the witness table, Roman Pucinski, interpreter beside him, right. Committee members, left to right on rostrum: Reps. Timothy Sheehan, (R-Ill., Alvin E. O’Konski, R-Wis., George A. Dondero, R-Mich., Ray J. Madden, D-Ind., Daniel J. Flood, D-Pa., Foster Furcolo, D-Mass., and Thaddeus M. Machrowicz, D-Mich. The Obama administration is opposing a Jewish group's bid to levy civil fines against Russia for failing to obey a court order to return its historic books and documents — a dispute which has halted the loan of Russian art works for exhibit in the United States. In a recent court filing, the Justice Department argued that judicial sanctions against Russia in this case would be contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests and inconsistent with U.S. law. The Jewish group, Chabad-Lubavitch of Brooklyn, N.Y., has already persuaded Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court here that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group's core teachings and traditions. (AP Photo/Bill Allen)
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FILE - In this Feb. 6, 1952, file photo, a masked former Polish soldier testifies to house committee on Katyn Forest massacre in Washington. With him at the witness table, Roman Pucinski, interpreter beside him, right. Committee members, left to right on rostrum: Reps. Timothy Sheehan, (R-Ill., Alvin E. O’Konski, R-Wis., George A. Dondero, R-Mich., Ray J. Madden, D-Ind., Daniel J. Flood, D-Pa., Foster Furcolo, D-Mass., and Thaddeus M. Machrowicz, D-Mich. The Obama administration is opposing a Jewish group's bid to levy civil fines against Russia for failing to obey a court order to return its historic books and documents — a dispute which has halted the loan of Russian art works for exhibit in the United States. In a recent court filing, the Justice Department argued that judicial sanctions against Russia in this case would be contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests and inconsistent with U.S. law. The Jewish group, Chabad-Lubavitch of Brooklyn, N.Y., has already persuaded Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court here that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group's core teachings and traditions. (AP Photo/Bill Allen)
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FILE - This Feb. 4, 1952, photo, shows a view of a partially emptied mass grave in the Katyn forest where a massacre of some 10,000 Polish prisoners of war took place in May 1943, near Smolensk, Russia. Col. John H. van Vliet is shown in the group at the edge of the trench, and van Vliet is convinced that the Russians, not the Germans, were responsible for the massacre. The Obama administration is opposing a Jewish group's bid to levy civil fines against Russia for failing to obey a court order to return its historic books and documents — a dispute which has halted the loan of Russian art works for exhibit in the United States. In a recent court filing, the Justice Department argued that judicial sanctions against Russia in this case would be contrary to U.S. foreign policy interests and inconsistent with U.S. law. The Jewish group, Chabad-Lubavitch of Brooklyn, N.Y., has already persuaded Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the U.S. District Court here that it has a valid claim to the tens of thousands of religious books and manuscripts, some up to 500 years old, which record the group's core teachings and traditions. (AP Photo)
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This Dec. 1993 photo provided by the Chabad-Lubavitch collection shows Vice President Al Gore presenting a book from the Schneerson Collection to Rabbi Boruch Shlomo Cunin of Chabad of California, in Moscow. The Obama administration is opposing a Jewish group’s bid to levy civil fines against Russia for failing to obey a court order to return its historic books and documents _ a dispute which has halted the loan of Russian art works for exhibit in the United States. (AP Photo/Chabad-Lubavitch collection)
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FILE - This Jan. 16, 2013 file photo shows outgoing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar entering the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington. The White House says tackling climate change and enhancing energy security will be among President Barack Obama's top priorities in his second term. Obama will have to do that work with new heads of the agencies responsible for the environment. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Environmental Protection chief Lisa Jackson and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all have announced they are leaving. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to follow his colleagues out the door in coming weeks. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
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FILE- In this April 17, 2012 file photo, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson gestures during an interview with The Associated Press at EPA Headquarters in Washington. The White House says tackling climate change and enhancing energy security will be among President Barack Obama's top priorities in his second term. Obama will have to do that work with new heads of the agencies responsible for the environment. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Environmental Protection chief Lisa Jackson and Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, all have announced they are leaving. Energy Secretary Steven Chu is expected to follow his colleagues out the door in coming weeks. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
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FILE - In this Aug. 18, 2011 file photo, people walk below a New York Police Department security camera, upper left, which was placed next to a mosque on Fulton Street in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant in New York. Civil rights lawyers are telling a judge that the New York Police Department’s surveillance of Muslim communities violates federal guidelines established to stop the NYPD from conducting political surveillance. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
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Chuck Newell records a demonstration against a nudity ban outside a Federal building Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 in San Francisco. Activists are asking a federal judge to block a city ordinance banning public nudity. The ban is scheduled to go into effect Feb. 1. The local law has become a divisive political issue in a town that prides itself on its inhibitions. The demonstration took place before a court hearing on the ordinance. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
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Natalie Mandeau, right, of France, holds up a sign during a demonstration against a nudity ban outside a federal building Thursday, Jan. 17, 2013 in San Francisco. Activists are asking a federal judge to block a city ordinance banning public nudity. The ban is scheduled to go into effect Feb. 1. The local law has become a divisive political issue in a town that prides itself on its inhibitions. The demonstration took place before a court hearing on the ordinance. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
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Author Patricia Cornwell leaves federal court in Boston, Thursday, Feb. 7, 2013, after she took the stand in her lawsuit against her former financial management company. Cornwell claims that the firm and a former executive cost her millions of dollars in losses or unaccounted revenue during their four-year relationship. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Author Cornwell takes stand at negligence trial
BOSTON (AP) — Crime writer
Patricia Cornwell is the first to admit she is easily distracted by noise and finds it nearly impossible to write when she is interrupted.
So when renovation work at her house in Concord dragged on, Cornwell missed a book deadline for the first time in her career.
The failure to find her a suitable place to write is among the claims Cornwell makes in a lawsuit against her former financial management firm and business manager. When Cornwell took the witness stand Thursday in her lawsuit against Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP, a New York accounting and wealth management firm, and former principal Evan Snapper, she offered a glimpse into her writing process and the problems she says were caused by the firm. She said a series of apartments and other properties rented by the firm all had noise, construction or privacy issues.
She said the stress and distractions from repeatedly moving caused her to miss her deadline in 2006. The missed deadline caused her to lose one year's income, about $15 million in non-recoverable advances and commissions, the lawsuit claims.
"This was very destabilizing. I really lost my ability to focus and concentrate. I did not know what the book was about anymore," Cornwell said. "I was just lost. I was adrift. I was extremely stressed."
Cornwell, 56, also said Anchin moved her from a conservative to an aggressive investment strategy without her permission.
Cornwell, known for her best-selling series of books dramatizing the life of fictional medical examiner Dr. Kay Scarpetta, spent nearly four hours on the witness stand, describing a turbulent childhood that included her mother being hospitalized for depression and Cornwell and her brothers being sent to live in a foster home. She also described her early years after college working as a police reporter and at the medical examiner's office in Richmond, Va.
"This is what introduced me to the whole world of forensic science and forensic medicine," Cornwell said.
She said she began writing novels while still working at the medical examiner's office. Her first novel, "Post Mortem" earned her just $6,000, but within a few years she had a $3 million contract to write two books.
She said her sudden success was exciting, but also overwhelming.
"I found very quickly I could not manage what was going on," she said.
She said she found that "the business of writing took away from the art of it," so she hired financial managers.
Her relationship with Anchin begain in 2004. Cornwell says in her lawsuit that Anchin agreed to manage all her money and the assets of her company, Cornwell Entertainment Inc.
Cornwell said she fired Anchin after discovering in July 2009 that her net worth was a little under $13 million, despite having eight-figure earnings in each of the previous four years. The lawsuit alleges negligence and breach of contract, claiming that Snapper and the firm cost Cornwell and her company millions in investment losses and unaccounted for revenues during their 4½-year relationship.
Lawyers for Anchin and Snapper deny Cornwell's claims. They claim there is no money missing from Cornwell's accounts and that any investment losses were caused by the financial and housing crises at the time. They also claim her net worth was diminished because of her extravagant spending habits, including Ferraris, helicopters and one apartment rental in New York City that cost $40,000 per month.
During opening statements at the trial, attorney James Campbell described Cornwell as a demanding client who "tends to push off responsibility and assign blame when things go off track." Anchin's lawyers said the firm did everything from business management to bringing Cornwell's clothes to the tailor to arranging care for her mother.
Cornwell, who has lived in the Boston area for the last six years, is married to Staci Gruber, a neuroscientist and assistant psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School.
Cornwell is expected to be questioned Friday by Anchin's lawyer.
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