Nurse Admits Thefts From Rich Patients : Courts: Woman who claimed heiress Doris Duke was murdered faces up to 11 years in prison for stealing from six other elderly employers.

The deathbed nurse who alleged that billionaire heiress Doris Duke was murdered with overdoses of morphine has pleaded guilty to stealing valuable jewelry and artworks from six wealthy patients.

Tammy Payette, 28, faces up to 11 years in prison and will have to make restitution for the valuables--from pearl necklaces to sterling silver corn holders--that disappeared from homes of upper-crust patients such as Duke and cosmetics magnate Max Factor.

Payette’s allegation last January that Duke “did not die of natural causes” launched a series of investigations and threw into turmoil Duke’s $1.2-billion estate. But Payette’s action also turned a spotlight on her own work for an elite in-home nursing service, and she was arrested two months later outside a jewelry store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, where she had sold--for a fraction of their worth--rings, statues and other items that authorities later valued at more than $500,000.

Payette was eventually charged with stealing from seven elderly patients from 1993 until early this year. In entering her plea, Payette admitted to the thefts from six of them--all except Duke, although she agreed to make restitution to the Duke estate for two pearl necklaces and jade eagles that are still missing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ralph Plummer said Friday.

Payette has insisted that the Duke items were actually gifts from the heiress’s former butler, Bernard Lafferty, “to buy me off” for helping to administer morphine, Demerol and Valium to the 80-year-old Duke just before she died Oct. 28, 1993, in her gated estate above Beverly Hills.

Although authorities were highly skeptical of that explanation--noting that Payette had tried to sell Duke’s pearls two weeks before her death--they did not insist that the plea include the Duke theft charge because the nurse faced the maximum penalty on the six other counts. “We made no promises” of a light sentence, Plummer said. “She can get anywhere from no time to 11 years.”

Sentencing for Payette, who remains in custody in lieu of $1 million bail, is scheduled for Dec. 14 before Superior Court Judge James Albracht, who accepted her plea at the Malibu courthouse Thursday.

The plea was applauded by a lawyer for Dr. Charles Kivowitz, the physician she accused of conspiring with Lafferty to administer the drugs so the butler could become executor of Duke’s estate.

“We’ve known all along that Tammy Payette lied when she accused Dr. Kivowitz of being somehow responsible for Doris Duke’s death,” attorney Leonard Levine said. “Now it’s clear that while she was lying she was also stealing property from . . . patients whom she was supposed to be caring for. . . . We hope Miss Payette will come forward and say at the time of sentencing what made her make these false accusations.”

Despite Payette’s legal problems, the investigation into her murder allegation by Los Angeles police and prosecutors is continuing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Sally Thomas said.

“We’re not at the point where we’re ready to make a decision,” Thomas said this week, adding that she hopes to conclude the investigation soon.

Nor have Payette’s troubles blunted the impact of her allegations on the court battle over Duke’s estate, which is destined to become one of the nation’s largest charitable foundations. Payette’s charges became the main ammunition of lawyers challenging Duke’s last will, signed while she was a stroke patient at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

They also prompted a probate judge in Manhattan, where the will was filed, to appoint a special investigator. And his findings led to the removal of Lafferty as executor--an action now being appealed in New York’s highest courts.

“Without Tammy Payette, we wouldn’t be here today,” said private detective Robert Frasco, whose Burbank firm investigated the nurse on behalf of Kivowitz.

Payette was one of six nurses assigned to care for Duke after she came home from the hospital in September, 1993. At Payette’s preliminary hearing, Los Angeles Police Detective Tom Donnelly testified that within weeks she was visiting Rodeo Drive jewelry shops, offering items she said were “from her great-aunt’s estate.”

An expert later placed a value of $185,000 to $210,000 on the diamonds that adorned three pearl necklaces missing from Duke’s bedroom. But Payette sold the necklaces and other Duke pieces, including the jade eagles, for $67,000, police said.

After Duke died, Payette worked in the home of 90-year-old Max Factor, who built the cosmetics company founded by his father. Factor’s business manager, Duny Cashion, said “things became missing,” including diamond cuff links and a gold watch. But Cashion said he hesitated to accuse any of the nurses because “I was afraid they’d all quit.”

Payette later was charged with stealing from five other patients as well.

“I guess she just counted on the fact all these persons were elderly and . . . reluctant to report [losses],” said LAPD Detective Robert Pixler.

Prosecutor Plummer said “roughly half of the stuff has been recovered,” but authorities are still trying to get other items, including two of Duke’s necklaces.

After her arrest, Payette told The Times that Duke’s jewels were an “expensive gift” from Lafferty “in appreciation for taking care of [Duke],” but that she later decided it had been a bribe “to make me keep quiet.”

“They were so wealthy,” she said of the patients. “I thought they weren’t going to miss it.”