Prison Author to Pay Damages in Killing

A jury Friday awarded nearly $7.6 million to the wife of a man stabbed to death by jailhouse author Jack Henry Abbott, rejecting the convicted killer’s argument that she did not deserve a penny.

“A little excessive, I would say,” Abbott, 46, remarked to the judge after the jury announced its verdict in a state court in Manhattan.

Abbott killed Richard Adan with a single stab wound to the heart outside an East Greenwich Village restaurant nine years ago after an argument. The killing occurred six weeks after author Norman Mailer had helped Abbott obtain early release from a Utah prison where he was serving time for the murder of a fellow inmate.

The jury deliberated six hours over two days before reaching its verdict.

The beaming widow, who was 22 at the time of Adan’s death on July 18, 1981, said she was pleased that the case had ended.

“It’s been nine years since that day,” said Ricci Adan, who was married to her husband, a budding actor, just six months before he was slain.

“It’s been a nightmare and, finally, at least, Richard has been heard. . . . He’s not a speck of dust or a piece of paper any more. He’s a person. He can rest now.”

Abbott, who acted as his own lawyer during the civil trial, had argued that Adan did not deserve a penny because her husband had no talent and therefore had no chance of becoming a successful actor. Abbott contended also that he was such an efficient killer that his victim suffered no pain.

Abbott’s correspondence with Mailer was published as a book entitled “In the Belly of the Beast.” The book includes a section in which Abbott describes the sensual experience of killing a person.

Abbott is serving a 15-year-to-life sentence for manslaughter in Adan’s death.

The New York County Sheriff’s Office has seized $100,000 of Abbott’s earnings from “In the Belly of the Beast.” The state Crime Victims Board has an additional $15,000 from a movie option on the book, rights to a play by the same name and, lastly, a second book called “My Return.”

That means any future earnings by Abbott probably will go to Adan until the jury’s award is satisfied.

“In other words, he will be writing for us for the rest of his life,” Henry Howard, the widow’s father, said.