Jury convicts socialite

Press, 18 March 1982, Page 9

Jury convicts socialite

NZPA-ReuterNewport, Rhode Island Without a flicker of emotion, a Danish-born socialite, Claus von Bulow, heard himself convicted yesterday of a bizarre and ingenious insulin murder plot that left his heiress wife in a permanent coma. Gasps and cries shuddered through the little courtroom as the jury returned its verdict, after almost 38 hours of deliberations, on the sixty-

sixth day of the high-society case. Von Bulow, aged 55, who lived in a mansion on Newport’s “Millionaires’ Row” and kept a palatial fifth Avenue apartment in New York, faces up to 40 years in jail. Von Bulow was freed on SUSIOO,OOO bail pending appeal and strode from the court without a word to his lawyers. He went immediately to a small office in the Newport

Superior Court building and telephoned his 14-year-old daughter, Cosima, to tell her he had been convicted. Von Bulow sat straightbacked in his chair with his hands clasped in front of him, as the verdict was announced. But his defence counsel, Herald' Fahringer of. New York, was in tears. Mr Fahringer said later: “Needless to say, we intend at the appropriate time to file an appeal.”