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Author Patricia Cornwell wins $50.9 million lawsuit

Staff reports

Posted: Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013

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Cornwell’s Charlotte Connection

Patricia Cornwell, born in Florida, spent much of her childhood in North Carolina. She received her bachelor’s degree from Davidson College and was a clerk and police reporter at The Charlotte Observer in the early 1980s.

Her book “Hornet’s Nest” is based in Charlotte and features a fictional Observer reporter named Andy Brazil. It was made into a TV movie for TNT, premiering in March 2012. But the movie was shot in Wilmington, not Charlotte.

Cornwell’s first book was “Ruth: A Portrait,” a biography of Ruth Bell Graham, Billy Graham’s wife, which came out in 1983. She updated it in 1997. Cornwell became a close friend of the Grahams while growing up in Montreat.

Mystery writer Patricia Cornwell, who was once a police reporter in Charlotte, won $50.9 million in a federal lawsuit in Boston on Tuesday.

Cornwell had sued financial management company Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP, claiming the firm and its former principal were negligent in handling Cornwell’s finances. The lawsuit alleged the principal and his colleagues personally benefited from their dealings with Cornwell, and cost her and her company tens of millions of dollars.

Jury foreman John Martus said, “I think at the end of the day we came to fair decision. And hopefully Anchin learns from this. If you are performing on someone else’s behalf, you have a responsibility towards them.”

Cornwell is the author of the Kay Scarpetta novels.

Read the Boston Globe story here.

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