RHODE ISLAND
The Hartford Courant
By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
5:49 p.m. EST, February 17, 2013
As Gabrielle Mee lay on her deathbed in a Rhode Island hospital in 2008 the leader of the Connecticut-based Legion of Christ asked her bank to transfer $400,000 from her personal bank account to the church “as soon as possible.”
The bank complied, and the money was the last of nearly $60 million that Mee either gave or bequeathed to the religious organization over nearly 20 years, court records unsealed late last week in Rhode Island indicate.
The documents were part of a now-dismissed lawsuit filed by Mary Lou Dauray, Mee’s niece, in an attempt to overturn Mee’s will, which left everything the woman had to the church group.
Among the thousands of pages of documents are depositions of some of the highest-ranking members of the Legion, bank records, and personal letters that Rev. Marcial Maciel, the now-disgraced founder, wrote to Mee over the years.
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