Alfred Bloomingdale's mistress sued his dying body for palimony, was beaten to death a year later, and her estate won $200,000

Alfred Bloomingdale, a co-founder of Diners Club, met Vicki Morgan in August 1969, when she was 17 and he was 53. He made her his mistress, paid her husband to end their marriage and kept her in an apartment. In July 1982, with Bloomingdale dying of cancer, she sued him for palimony through the lawyer Marvin Mitchelson. She said he had promised to support her for being his mistress for 12 years. His side did not deny the affair and argued that any arrangement was "a contract for prostitution." Bloomingdale died less than six weeks after she filed. The court dismissed most of the claim. Morgan relied on a contract for $240,000, of which she had been paid $40,000, and the judge called the agreement "sex for hire"^†. On 7 July 1983 she was beaten to death with a baseball bat in her North Hollywood apartment. Her roommate, Marvin Pancoast, confessed hours later. He was sentenced to 26 years to life and died in prison in 1991^†. Her later lawyer, Robert Steinberg, said he held videotapes of sex acts involving Bloomingdale, a congressman and Reagan appointees, then said they had been stolen. Police recommended charging him with filing a false theft report. The suit went on for her son, Todd. In December 1984 a jury awarded her estate the remaining $200,000^†.