Art Streiber/CBS© 2013 CBS Broadcasting Inc.(SAN FRANCISCO) — Robin Williams’ widow and his children are at odds over the late Oscar winner’s estate.
The New York Times reports his widow, Susan Schneider Williams, filed court papers in San Francisco last December arguing that some property was “unilaterally removed” from the couple’s home days after her husband died. Because of this, she claims, she has not been “given time to grieve her loss free from the frenetic efforts to interfere with her domestic tranquility.”
Williams’ three children from two previous marriages — Zachary, 31; Zelda, 25; and Cody, 23 — filed a response last month in which they say they are “heartbroken” because Schneider Williams has acted against their father’s wishes. They further claim she is adding “insult to a terrible injury” by trying to “prevent them from receiving what their father wanted them to receive.”
Williams’ final wishes were to leave for his wife their Tiburon, California, home and “the contents thereof,” with certain restrictions, as part of a trust that was separate from a trust designated for his three children, according to documents.
Clothing; jewelry; personal photos taken prior to Williams’ marriage to his third wife; memorabilia and awards from his entertainment career; and other personal effects, including property he kept at a home in Napa, California, were to be left to his children.
There appears to be a disconnect over possessions such as what Schneider Williams calls Williams’ “personal collections of knickknacks,” which the children say includes graphic novels, theater masks and other possessions they say hold great sentimental value to them.
A lawyer for Schneider Williams tells The New York Times, “Mr. Williams wanted his wife to be able to stay in her home and not be disrupted in her life with her children.”
“Compared to what the Williams children were set to receive from their father, this is a bucket of water in a lake,” the lawyer adds.
Williams committed suicide in his Tiburon home last August.
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