Blue-blood breakup

Accusations of affairs, abuse, mental instability and money wasted at Wal-Mart are all part of a divorce case involving the great-great grandson of John D. Rockefeller and the daughter of a Reagan ambassador. At stake: an old-money fortune and custody of their five children.

By KRIS HUNDLEY

© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000

Cosmo Cremaldi just wanted some orange juice.

But as he wandered into the kitchen of the sprawling mansion at Mountain Lake during a christening party on New Year's Day 1995, Cremaldi says he stumbled onto something else: the father of the newly baptized child making out with the teenage babysitter.

Cremaldi said the man, George O'Neill Jr., an heir to the Rockefeller fortune, looked over his shoulder at the interruption and smirked.

"It was the look young guys give each other when one is winning the attention of a girl and the other one isn't," said Cremaldi, a longtime friend of the O'Neill family and godfather of the couple's oldest child. "It didn't disrupt what was going on. I got my orange juice and left."

Cremaldi told his wife later that evening about the awkward encounter, but the two of them initially refrained from telling George's wife, Amy. It wasn't until more than two years later, after Amy filed for divorce accusing George of adultery and George countered by calling her crazy, that Cremaldi spoke up.

Now Cremaldi, a Boston businessman, is a bit player in the ongoing drama of O'Neill vs. O'Neill, a divorce case scheduled to go to trial in Orlando on Wednesday. It's a high-society soap opera with extraordinarily privileged players.

On one side is O'Neill, the 49-year-old great-great grandson of John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil in the 1870s and created such mind-boggling wealth that heirs are still feeding off proceeds five generations later. One of the four trusts of which George is a beneficiary was set up by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1934 and was valued two years ago at $354-million; George's stake in the family fortune has been estimated to be at $200-million.

On the other side of the divorce is the 32-year-old daughter of Faith Whittlesey, President Ronald Reagan's two-time ambassador to Switzerland and former assistant to the president.

The couple, who were married in 1989, have five children.

The carefully nurtured -- and heavily guarded -- calm of Mountain Lake, a wealthy enclave outside Lake Wales, has been shattered by publicity surrounding the divorce of one of its most pedigreed couples. The people of Lake Wales, meanwhile, are disgusted that they've been dragged into the mess, with a story about the divorce in the January issue of Vanity Fair writing off the whole Polk County town as trailer trash.

Tootie Farrar, a lifelong Lake Wales resident, said the sordid accusations in the O'Neill divorce -- of a Rockefeller fooling around with local high school girls while his overmedicated wife slashes herself -- confirm her suspicion that trash can live in mansions as well as trailers. "That's what happens when there's interbreeding," she said.

For nearly three years, the O'Neills have been fighting in court over money, control and custody of their five children, who range in age from 1 to 8. The case file in the Orange County Courthouse fills more than 14 volumes; stacked on top of each other, the documents tower over the court's clerks. Though neither George, Amy nor their lawyers are now talking to the media, the court records speak volumes. And former employees, with fiercely divided loyalties, haven't hesitated to speak out.

Terri Nelson, who worked for the couple and was accused by Amy of having oral sex with George (a charge both parties denied), testified that Amy was a "crazy bitch" who at times could be "as sweet as plum pie."

Shirley Hare, a longtime nanny for the O'Neills, said George routinely mocked Amy in front of his "harem" of hired girls. "He treated her like the dirt under his feet," Hare said.

Attorneys fees for both sides, at $400 an hour, have totaled nearly $1-million and O'Neill has taken out a $1-million loan from Chase Manhattan Bank to fuel the ongoing legal battle. Skirmishes have flared over issues both monumental and mundane. Among the motions:

Amy O'Neill has fought to get details of four highly secretive Rockefeller family trusts, said to be worth billions, entered into the court record. The motion was denied during preliminary hearings, but Amy's lawyer intends to try to get the trusts introduced into evidence at trial. George's lawyers have argued that the trusts are not part of the marital assets and should remain private.

George has pushed for release of Amy's psychiatric treatment records, a motion which has also been rejected. The judge allowed financial statements showing Amy spent nearly $13,000 per year on professional help and another $14,400 on medications prior to the divorce filing. The court also ordered psychiatric examinations of both parties that found "no evidence of an active psychiatric disorder in either individual."

George has challenged the competence and fees charged by the court-appointed guardian and has tried several times to have her removed from the case. In each case, the court has upheld the guardian's role and ordered George to pay all fees.

George has accused Amy of breaking and entering after she slipped into his house to retrieve a daughter's stuffed animal left behind after a weekend visit by the children.

George demanded a paternity test of the couple's fifth child, born after the divorce filing. After the test showed the probability of paternity to be 99.932 percent, he began filing motions demanding overnight custody of the newborn girl. He has not responded to Amy's motions requesting additional child support for the child.

Amy, who has been receiving $12,800 per month in temporary alimony and child support, has battled in hearings for more money, citing private school tuition bills of $4,000 per month. "There are no other Rockefeller heirs in public schools," said Amy, whose mother has been footing the bill for tuition. "All have gone to private schools."

George, an erstwhile sculptor who lives on trust income and gifts from his mother, Abby Mauze O'Neill, counters that Amy is a compulsive shopper who burns through money. His evidence: receipts showing she spent nearly $7,000 on fabric in 14 months.

What is ending with vicious courtroom sniping began with a storybook wedding in September 1989 at St. James Episcopal Church on New York City's upper East Side.

Amy, a blonde beauty described by friends as both worldly and naive, had been introduced to George in late 1988 by her mother, whose right-wing politics meshed neatly with those of her future son-in-law. George was a 39-year-old bachelor who lurched between conservative political causes and artistic endeavors. Amy, whose father committed suicide when she was 6, had two years of college and dreams of becoming a full-time mom. It was a marriage made in Phyllis Schlafly heaven.

The couple divided their early years between George's self-consciously seedy artist's loft in New York City and a small hotel in Pietrasanta, Italy. But by 1993, as they were trying to start a family, the O'Neills relocated to the unlikely setting of Mountain Lake, where the Rockefellers had owned property for generations.

Dilapidated mansion in aristocratic air

Set on 3,500 acres adjacent to Bok Tower, the Mountain Lake community was developed in the early 1920s as wealthy Yankees sought winter retreats and rode their private rail cars into nearby Lake Wales. Among the early families, who built faux French, Italian and English Tudor castles on Mountain Lake's lush rolling hills, were the Hersheys, the Westinghouses, the Bucks of Bethlehem Steel and the owner of Ballentine Ale. Twenty-room "cottages" on 10 acres were the norm, tended by retinues of inside and outside servants. Today Mountain Lake's 121 homes generate nearly $41-million annually in real estate tax for Polk County.

The founding families built an elaborate clubhouse, with restaurant, pool and tennis courts, then wrapped an 18-hole golf course and iron-flat croquet court among the arching oaks. They surrounded the entire sanctuary with orange groves and a chain-link fence, then put a guard at the only entry off Route 17A.

Though they occasionally traveled a mile south into "the village" of Lake Wales, the Mountain Lake community did not encourage return visits. Many area residents are only vaguely aware Mountain Lake exists and have never passed through its gates. The elite of Mountain Lake, who welcome locals as landscapers or laundresses, like it that way.

When George and Amy O'Neill arrived, for what both expected to be just a brief stay, they rented a rambling two-story Spanish-style villa. Lacking air-conditioning and full of roaches, the home had seen better days. Despite hiring a staff that included a housekeeper and yard worker, the O'Neills did little to improve their surroundings during their four years there.

Those who knew of George's penchant for thumbing his nose at others' expectations were not particularly surprised by his dilapidated mansion. But others, who expected a Rockefeller to live like a Rockefeller, were shocked.

Paint was peeling off the home's walls and ceilings. Heavy full-length curtains, always drawn, had been rotted by the sun. Railings of upstairs balconies rattled unsteadily.

"I'd come to work at 7:30 a.m. and clean up the dogs' messes in the living room," said Hare, whose own modest ranch-style home in Lake Wales is immaculately kept. "But when I'd tell George about it, he'd just ignore me."

Hare was hired as the O'Neill's nanny in early 1993. The couple were in the process of adopting Paul Henry, a toddler who was the child of Amy's older brother, Paul, a schizophrenic, and his mentally ill girlfriend. At the time, Amy was pregnant with their daughter, Catherine.

For the next four years, Amy was either pregnant and on bed rest, or bedridden with postpartum depression. According to court records, she was on everything from Xanax for anxiety and Prozac for depression to Pondamin and Phentermine for weight loss.

In depositions, former employees testified that Amy's reliance on a basketful of medicines left her inaccessible as a mother and erratic as a boss.

According to Marge Legg, George's laundress, when Roger, the fourth child, was 3 months old and seriously ill, Amy went shopping alone at the mall rather than care for the child. On returning home, she sent the baby home with Legg for the night. Amy's mother finally took the child to the emergency room the next day, Legg said.

When Paul Henry threw a temper tantrum at age 4, Erica Hayes, another employee, said Amy locked him in a closet. Several former babysitters claim that Amy often gave the children cough syrup with codeine when they weren't sick to make them sleep through the night.

Hare, who said she never saw Amy overmedicate the children, said the young woman was nearly zombie-like from prescription drugs and the strain of having three children within 21/2 years.

"It was like she was in a trance," said Hare. "But she was afraid the kids wouldn't get to know her, so I spent a lot of time in her bedroom, letting them crawl all over her."

George responded to his wife's deteriorating condition by making her wear a spiral-bound notebook on a chain around her neck. "He said she needed it because she was always forgetting things," said Hare, who said Amy wrote medication times and to-do lists in the book. "He humiliated her day after day."

On a boat ride during a vacation in Maine, George nonchalantly invited another woman out on a date in the presence of Amy and Paul Henry. And, according to Amy's journals, George asked his wife to perform sexual acts with another woman in his presence, a request Amy rejected.

Rather than helping with the growing brood of children, George threw himself into yet another venture: Lost Classics Book Co., dedicated to republishing turn-of-the-century children's books encouraging "sound moral development in their readers." Though the company has published 19 books, George recently told the court it continues to lose money.

The new company operated out of an upstairs bedroom in the family's home and, as assistants, George hired about a half-dozen local high school girls, many of them former babysitters for the family. Rebecca Bigford said she was plucked from her $6 an hour job caring for the kids to work for Lost Classics at $11 an hour because she had good handwriting.

"Then they didn't even use the part I had written, so I started answering phones and doing filing," said Bigford, who now sells cosmetics at Dillard's in Lake Wales. "We worked long hours but we had a fun time."

Too much fun, said Hare, who said George's publishing crew would show up for work at all hours in short shorts and halter tops. The girls, who Hare said tended to be buxom and slightly hefty, would often take breaks to swim in the family pool, shower in the office's bathroom, or go target shooting at the nearby quarry with George. And midmorning "Wafflerama" became a tradition, with Bigford cooking up an extended brunch of waffles for everyone, including the boss.

"Those girls were just ga-ga about working for a Rockefeller," said Hare, who often heard George entertaining his workers with tales of his travels and accomplishments. "He loved telling everybody how important a person he was."

Bigford defends her and her co-workers' close relationship with their boss and said Wafflerama was no big deal.

"There was no crossing lines with Mr. O'Neill," she said. "He was like a father figure. There was no kissing or touching; the closest we ever came was a hug."

Attempts of normalcy, then a downward spiral

Amy's isolation intensified as the house filled with paid help, according to depositions in the divorce case. Mountain Lake had a highly seasonal, mostly older population, with just one other child living full-time in the community. Amy, who had moved often as a child, desperately wanted a home of her own.

"George would tell her, "We'll see,' and Amy would get excited and look through books and talk to Realtors," Hare said. "But then he'd tell me, "We're not moving away from this house.' "

George, who received about $36,000 per month in trust income in 1996, never entrusted his wife with cash or credit cards. If Amy went shopping in Lake Wales, he would send along one of his employees with orders that they should bring home the change.

While on vacation in Maine, she was once given a credit card to take a sick child to the doctor. After the doctor visit, however, Amy dropped by the local Wal-Mart and spent seven hours shopping, buying so much merchandise the cashier asked if her house had burned down. All the goods, including toys and kids furniture, were later returned.

"Amy would have to beg George for money and she hated that, so she'd borrow it from the help," said Hare, who thought it was odd that a Rockefeller asked babysitters for cash. "Then we'd have to go to George to get repaid and get a lecture about how he was tired of giving away money."

Amy made a few futile attempts at normalcy, trying to cook occasional meals for George's relatives.

"She was nervous about having the senior O'Neills (George's parents) over for dinner and she'd call me for advice," said Catherine Cremaldi, who runs a gourmet grocery in Cambridge's Harvard Square with her husband, Cosmo. "But she never told us there was any problem. She seemed madly in love with George and never downed him at all."

In the summer of 1996, Amy's downward spiral worsened. One evening a babysitter found her at the kitchen table with a bottle of vodka and a knife and a pool of blood under her feet.

"I asked her what she had done," testified Kerry Miller, then a 16-year-old high school student. "She said she had cut the tops of her hands and feet." Miller fetched George, who called an ambulance.

Amy's depression was fueled by a growing suspicion that George was being more than fatherly with his assistants. She called the parents of one of the Lost Classics girls, accusing their daughter of "inappropriate conduct" with George, an allegation the daughter told her father was "bull crap." She also phoned the local funeral director and told him she had come upon his ex-wife, Terri Nelson, having oral sex with George, an accusation both denied in court. (Nelson testified that she brought marijuana to smoke with both Amy and George and that Amy passed out and they put her to bed.)

Ultimately, the end came in painfully drawn-out stages.

In mid-1997, Amy threw the kids in the van and sped off to Orlando after she claimed George had grabbed her by the throat, called her "Satan" and paced the floor for a half-hour with a gun. After filing for divorce in July, Amy returned to Mountain Lake with the kids to live in a house owned by her mother, just down the road from George. When her mother's house was sold, Amy and the children lived for five months in a run-down, two-room motel unit in Lake Wales.

The couple attempted a reconciliation: George became more attentive to the children and fired all his Lost Classics girls. Though with his wife he was stingy, George was generous with his employees, paying for plastic surgery for Jennifer Acreman, a girl who admitted having a crush on him, and sending Erica Hayes on a flight to Gulfport, Miss., to visit her boyfriend. He even loaned money to Hayes' family to pay for their son's divorce and the funeral of another daughter's boyfriend.

Telling his workers that their presence agitated Amy, George handed out generous severance payments. Hayes, a high school girl who had been working at McDonald's when she joined the O'Neill work force, testified that George gave her $3,500 cash when he announced the layoffs. Bigford also got a cash settlement, though she declines to disclose the amount.

"We cried when we were fired," said Bigford, who thinks Amy had no intention of reconciling. "She just wanted to get rid of us. She was paranoid."

After hearing testimony of the O'Neills and their employees, Nancy S. Palmer, the court-appointed guardian, told the judge that while she doubts George O'Neill was involved in sexual intercourse with any of his employees, "I think the relationships, particularly in front of his children, were inappropriate."

Palmer also criticized George for letting the employees openly berate Amy, calling her a "dragon lady" and "loony as a tune."

"Making fun of Mom seems to have been one of the preoccupations of the "publishing work force."' wrote Palmer, who said she witnessed such behavior herself. "Most, but not all of the babysitters are uneducated and appear enamored with the O'Neill lifestyle."

Surveillance and 'spiritual warfare'

In December 1998, just days after the birth of the couple's fifth child, a judge in Orlando granted Amy primary residential responsibility for the children and approved her move to Delray Beach, where she lives with her mother.

In approving the move, which George had strongly opposed, the judge said, "the Lake Wales community in which these children have lived has become highly polarized by the vicious gossip and innuendo perpetuated by former members of this couple's staff as well as other acquaintances. ... common sense would indicate that Ms. O'Neill and her children may not be warmly embraced by all members of this community should she be ordered to stay in Lake Wales."

As George gears up for what he has called the "spiritual warfare" of the divorce, he has become a regular at morning Mass at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Lake Wales. Standing ramrod straight and apart from the much older congregation, O'Neill has impressed fellow parishioners with his dedication.

"You can see the heavy cross he's carrying," said Amelia Updike, who has become close friends with George since introducing herself after services. "He's a very solicitous father amidst the storm around him. And from my personal dealings with him, the accusations about him seem totally off the wall."

Amy, who told the court she has borrowed more than $150,000 from her mother to cover expenses, is traveling daily between Delray Beach and Orlando to prepare for trial. Hare, who saw Amy, her mother and the children on Easter, said the financial and physical strain has exhausted the women, especially Faith Whittlesey, who lost an eye to cancer several years ago.

"They're just worn out," said Hare, who said Amy has refused settlement offers so far in the hopes of getting more money. "Maybe I don't know Amy as well as I think I do, because she wants to have it all and not work for it."

George, who once told Amy his mother received $1-million a month in trust income while he lived on substantially less, seems determined to hang tough. He has spent $60,000 on private investigators to trail Amy and plans to introduce video surveillance of her, the children and their babysitters at the trial.

"She desires to spend money freely on anything she wants," George's attorney, Michael R. Walsh, argued in a motion. "Now she is having to live, as most Americans do, on a budget."

Ironically, loyalists on each side think the separation has forced both George and Amy to be better parents. George has spruced up his home and spent hours building an Indian chickee with the children, who make the three-hour trek from Delray Beach each weekend. Amy has become more involved with the children and their school, taking them to tennis lessons and hosting birthday parties.

Cosmo Cremaldi, the man who just wanted orange juice, thinks the divorce has become "make-work" for George, allowing him to play the martyr. He thinks Amy will eventually give up, worn down by Rockefeller resources.

"But what's the point?" asks Cremaldi. "The kids will grow up and go looking for whichever parent doesn't get them."

Cremaldi's sharp-tongued wife, Catherine, suggests a solution. "They should both go get jobs."

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