Ex-Guard Seeks Share of Heiress’s Fortune

Just when it looked like the legal wrangling over Doris Duke’s tobacco fortune had ended, yet another figure stepped forward Wednesday to claim a portion of the late heiress’s $1.2 billion estate: one of her former security guards.

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, former guard James Burns, 32, does not ask for money directly from the Duke estate, but seeks half the nearly $66 million paid the heiress’s adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner.

The suit indicates that Heffner and the guard became romantically involved and lived together from 1990 to 1993--covering the period when the elderly, ailing Duke tried frantically to disown the adopted daughter, whom she decided was out only for her money.

Burns served as Heffner’s “companion, confidant, cook, bodyguard [and] security specialist,” according to the lawsuit, which alleged that Heffner, in turn, agreed that they would divide evenly “her expected inheritance from her mother, Doris Duke, [or] any claim against Doris Duke’s estate.”

Heffner was written out of the last will of Duke, who died in October 1993, in Falcon Lair, her gated home above Beverly Hills. But Heffner went to court to get a share of Duke’s fortune and reached a $65.8-million settlement with the estate’s executors.

The legal fight over Duke’s fortune raged on, though, as other will challenges were brought by the heiress’s former accountant, doctor and a trio of servants. It took until this May for a judge in Manhattan to approve a plan to send the bulk of Duke’s money to charity under a settlement that removed the heiress’s former butler, Bernard Lafferty, as executor of the estate in return for a $4.5-million executor’s fee and $500,000 yearly bequest.

The suit filed by Burns alleges that a month later, in June, Heffner “repudiated and breached her agreement” to share her windfall with the former guard.

The attorney who brought the suit, Cary W. Goldstein of Beverly Hills, said Burns traveled with Duke’s entourage, helping provide security at her lavish homes around the country. Burns now lives in Los Angeles, where he works as a “security specialist” and is attending school, the lawyer said.

In seeking $32.9 million from Heffner, Burns said he suffered “humiliation, mental anguish and emotional injuries” as well as “loss of sleep.”