An American lawyer has been awarded $100,000 for defending a dog in court. The news is yet another bizarre twist in a story involving allegations that a deceased Donegal man murdered one of the richest women in the world.
Mr Bernard Lafferty, formerly of Creeslough, Co Donegal, was appointed executor of the will of American heiress Ms Doris Duke after she died in 1993.
The dog in question, called Robert, was once in the care of Mr Lafferty who was butler to Ms Duke. Robert had been left $100,000 in Ms Duke’s will to pay for his care.
However, it had been alleged that Mr Lafferty was not looking after Robert properly, so lawyer Mr Raymond Dowd set about trying to wrest control of Ms Duke's estate from the heiress’s former butler.
Mr Dowd succeeded in the mid-90s amid claims that Mr Lafferty had become an alcoholic. Mr Lafferty, died of a heart attack in Los Angeles a few years later.
While Mr Dowd cleared up yet another piece of business in relation to Ms Duke’s estate, he said there was a further matter outstanding: the whereabouts of another dog called Rodeo.
Rodeo is missing and the deceased butler's bank is being sued for recovery of the animal. "It's shocking that a bank could lose a dog," Mr Dowd told the New York Post.
Mr Dowd said he fought three years to defend Robert's inheritance and a separate $100,000 trust fund the billionaire tobacco heiress had left for the care of her dogs.
Claims that Bernard murdered Ms Duke were never proved.
Robert is now being cared for in Beverly Hills.