Thankful Emigrant Leaves $5.6 Million
An Austrian emigrant has left $5.6 million to the U.S. government as a thank you to the country that took them in.
Stanley S. Newberg, who died in 1986 at age 81 without any surviving blood relatives, left most of his $8.4-million estate to the government. The Justice Department received its $5.6 million earlier this week, U.S. Atty. Donald K. Stern said Friday.
The will tied no restrictions to the gift, which was forwarded to the Bureau of Public Debt in Washington to be used to cover general government expenses.
It will cover less than two minutes of government spending, based on the 1994 federal budget, which is $1.5 trillion.
Newberg married once, to a woman who had three children from a previous marriage, and the stepchildren, Julian and Felix Porter and Letty Pearl, contested the will.
They produced a document they said Newberg had signed that gave them half his assets upon his death, officials said. However, a handwriting expert determined the document had been forged and they settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.
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