Challenge to Mrs. Mee's Will Dismissed; Niece's Appeal Likely

By Gerry Goldstein
Valley Breeze
September 20, 2012

http://www.valleybreeze.com/2012/09/19/cl/challenge-to-mrs-mee-s-will-dismissed-niece-s-appeal-likely


SMITHFIELD - As a devout Catholic, the late millionaire Gabrielle Mee entrusted her faith - and her finances - to the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado.

According to court documents, she "worshipped him nearly as a saint."

But in the end, Father Maciel, as he was commonly known, was unmasked as a sexual predator who disgraced the religious order he founded in 1941, the Legionaries of Christ.

For years, Mee, who knew Maciel personally, gave his international order millions of dollars, joined it as a "consecrated woman" in her old age, and then willed it all her assets.

Now, a prolonged battle over the bequest that began in Smithfield's Probate Court is headed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

The latest round concluded Sept. 7, when Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein dismissed a challenge to Mee's will, brought by her niece, Mary Lou Dauray, who is seeking to have the document's probate court approval overturned.

Silverstein ruled that Dauray has no legal standing to bring an appeal, but he also said there could be credence to her arguments, and he refused to dismiss the two allegations at the core of her objection.

She contends that the Legion of Christ unduly influenced her aunt to make huge donations and fraudulently withheld information about Maciel's transgressions, which resulted in a Papal investigation and his banishment in 2006 to a life of "prayer and penitence." He died in 2008.

Silverstein's ruling against Dauray's eligibility to mount a challenge would have ended the case outright. But her lawyer, Bernard Jackvony, told The Valley Breeze & Observer that she will appeal to the Supreme Court, seeking to have Silverstein's dismissal overturned and the case returned to Superior Court for trial.

Despite his ruling against Dauray, Silverstein indicated that enough evidence exists to create a presumption of undue influence.

He wrote, "without a doubt in this case... The transfer of millions of dollars worth of assets - through will, trust, and gifts - from a steadfastly spiritual, elderly woman to her trusted but clandestinely dubious religious leaders raises a red flag to this court..."

In fact, Silverstein wrote, information supplied the court indicates that "the totality of the circumstances is at least suspicious and calls for some explanation."

According to documents Silverstein cited, Mee - who lived her final years in an apartment at the tiny, Legion-owned Mater Ecclesiae College on Austin Avenue and died there in 2008 at age 96 - gave the Legion an estimated $60 million over a period of years, and also made numerous changes to her will and to trust agreements that gradually expanded the order's authority over her estate and its millions.

One gift alone involved her agreement to make the payments from one of her trust funds on a $25-million loan the Legion took out to buy a former IBM conference center in Thornwood, N.Y., the annual payments for which were $1.3 million, for use as a seminary.

This past April the order announced it was putting the sprawling center on the market due to revenue strains it attributed at least partially to fallout from the Maciel scandal.

Mee, who long outlived her businessman husband, Timothy J. Mee, a Woonsocket businessman, was childless despite visits to "a Catholic doctor about pregnancy and fertility issues," court papers say.

Mee grew up in Woonsocket with a Catholic education, and at age 12 made a vow to pray the Rosary every day, which she reportedly did for the next 84 years - nightly with her husband during the 37 years of their marriage before his death in 1985.

Timothy Mee, who operated a coal business and was a banking director, had been previously married, but his first wife and two children died in the 1938 hurricane as the family fled its summer home on Charlestown Beach.

Judge Silverstein cited a number of occurrences that he said demonstrated Mee's close relationship with the Legion on both spiritual and financial levels.

He noted that Mee met "on numerous occasions" with Maciel, frequently wrote him letters, and said "she would cherish as long as she lived" the blessing he gave her when the two first met in 1989.

Silverstein referred also to what he said were "hundreds of letters" in which Mee viewed Maciel as a "saint" and considered him to be "a holy person."

But investigation determined that the priest was a sexual molester who also fathered three children with two women.

The judge cited testimony given in depositions that the Legion prevented Mee, who allegedly was closely monitored at the college, from learning the truth about Maciel.

The testimony indicated that if she had been told, she would have cut off support for the Legion because of her strong beliefs in Catholic moral teachings.

Silverstein noted documents indicating that in 1993, Mee was allowing two brothers in another religious order she supported, the Contemplatives, to live in a house she owned in North Smithfield.

But when she learned that one of them was accused of soliciting sex from another male she cut off support for the organization, wanted to evict the two, and shortly afterward deeded the property on Great Road to the Legion of Christ.

Dauray contends this indicates how Mee would have reacted to the Legion if she knew about Maciel.

Instead, the court record shows continuing gifts ranging into the millions.

Silverstein took note that on May 12, 2008 - four days before Mee died - an official of the Legion to whom she had granted durable power of attorney asked for and received from Fleet Bank a $400,000 gift from her personal account.

In his decision, however, Silverstein denied Dauray's motion to find the bank, which had also been one of Mee's trustees, in breach of its fiduciary duties. Silverstein said such a determination on various allegations against the bank should be reserved for a fact-finder.

Dauray, an artist from Sausalito, Calif., has disavowed any interest in getting her aunt's money - and, ironically, that figured significantly in Silverstein's ruling against her standing to make a challenge.

He quoted case law that says, "the interest must be pecuniary...and not a mere sentimental interest."

He said that while grandchildren may qualify as persons of legal interest in such a case, "this court is not aware of any cases conferring standing ... to a niece who is neither a legatee under the will nor a beneficiary under the trusts."

Lawyer Jackvony said Dauray feels that Mee and her husband wanted their fortune to go to Rhode Island Catholic entities, and not to an international organization like the Legion, with no direct ties to the Diocese of Providence.

Dauray argues that she has common law standing to enforce Mee's trusts and recover gifts made from her aunt's estate, and similar standing to appeal validation of the will by Smithfield's late probate judge F. Monroe Allen in 2010, after a protracted battle by opposing sides.

At the time, lawyers for the Legion of Christ said the case revolved around whether a deeply religious woman could give away her money as she chose, and that no evidence existed to prove any of Mee's gifts were tainted by undue influence.

Lawyer Joseph McGair, representing the Mee estate in Superior Court, argued likewise in requesting the dismissal. He has said in the past that Mrs. Mee's personality was so strong it would be ludicrous to think she could be influenced to act against her judgment.

Silverstein, however, said Dauray has presented "admissible evidence creating genuine disputes of fact regarding undue influence," including:

* The Legion of Christ waived its usual educational and time requirements in allowing Mee to become a "consecrated woman" like those at the college, who take the same vows of chastity, obedience, and poverty as nuns and must turn over to the order half their assets within 15 years and all their assets within 25 years.

* Legion members met with Mee alone "while her own family and friends could not, and may have solicited gifts."

* Father Maciel gave Mee advice on how she should handle her finances, and he and others "repeatedly promised to mention Mrs. Mee in their prayers at Mass in return for her gifts to the Legion of Christ."

* In response to her gifts, Father Maciel and others invited her on trips to Rome and Mexico and "reinforced how pleased Mr. Mee and the Lord would be with her donations."

According to Silverstein's explanations in his decision, if the case is ever argued out on its merits, the burden to prove absence of undue influence will be on the Legion, as the receiver of gifts within an established confidential relationship between an individual and a spiritual adviser.

He quoted case law that says while "It is a difficult burden to discharge ... "the donee in such a case has the burden to show perfect fairness toward, complete freedom of, and absence of undue influence upon, the donor."