EXCLUSIVE: New York widow in $250 million estate battle gave up another child from China

EXCLUSIVE: New York widow in $250 million estate battle gave up another child from China

Christine Svenningsen, 55, adopted a baby boy from China after her husband died in May 1997, then changed her mind after she brought the child she named Eric home to Westchester County, court papers reveal.

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN AND DAREH GREGORIAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

PUBLISHED: SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2013, 12:01 AM

UPDATED: SUNDAY, MARCH 3, 2013, 12:01 AM

She's Cruella de Mom.

A wealthy widow who gave up her Chinese daughter for readoption after eight years — then tried to cut the girl out of her husband’s $250 million estate — had years earlier dumped another baby she adopted from China, the Daily News has learned.

Christine Svenningsen, 55, adopted a baby boy from China after her husband died in May 1997, then changed her mind after she brought the child she named Eric home to Westchester County, court papers reveal.

Svenningsen already had five biological children, plus the first child she’d adopted from China, Emily.

“Now after your adoption of Emily, did you go to China to adopt a boy named Eric?” Stephen Hochhauser, the lawyer for Emily’s new parents, asked Svenningsen in a 2009 deposition.

“Yes,” Svenningsen answered.

“What happened with Eric?” Hochhauser asked. “What did you do with him?”

“He was adopted,” Svenningsen said, by “a person in New Jersey.”

Court papers did not disclose when Eric was adopted or readopted.

“And what was the reason for terminating (your) adoption?” Hochhauser asked.

“I couldn’t handle seven children,” Svenningsen answered.

Svenningsen — known for amassing a small kingdom of island estates in Long Island Sound, which she once described as “like little pieces of art” and renovates as a hobby, only to leave many sitting empty — decided she couldn’t handle six children, either.

A state appeals court ruled earlier this month that Christine Svenningsen, the wealthy widow of a party goods mogul, must cut her former adopted daughter into her family's $250 million fortune.

She gave Emily up in late 2004, when the little girl was 8. She then fought to exclude the girl from her party-supply magnate husband’s $250 million estate — a bid that was shot down last month by a state appeals court.

Standing in the doorway of their Colonial-style farmhouse in a rural section of Connecticut, Emily’s new mom, Maryann Campbell, told The News, “We’re not going to be making any comment,” calling their court battle a “debacle.”

The mother-daughter duo had just arrived home, a bespectacled Emily riding in the front seat of the family’s Mercedes-Benz.

“Things will pass,” Campbell said as Emily rushed into the house. “We’re all fine.”

In fact, court filings show Emily is much better off in her new home — where she’s able to sit at the same dinner table with the rest of her family, unlike when she lived with the Svenningsens.

In papers filed in Westchester Surrogate’s Court, Campbell slammed Christine Svenningsen’s “Draconian” methods of discipline.

Once in 2003, as punishment for “disobeying major house rules,” Emily was forced to sleep in a tent for a week, according to court papers. She was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital; a witness said she was covered in bug bites.

Svenningsen, asked at her deposition what rule Emily had broken, said she couldn’t remember. Campbell’s filings say Svenningsen also separated Emily from her siblings at dinner.

In her own court filings, Svenningsen claimed Emily had been a problem child.

“When Emily was about 3 years of age, she began to exhibit behavioral problems. For example, she would, for no reason, just start shaking her head, pulling on her hair and moaning. This would happen a few times a day,” she said.

Svenningsen said the child was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and put on medication, and described her as “moody,” “sullen” and “depressed.”

Emily’s grade-school teachers, however, described her as “lively and friendly,” “bubbly” and “full of cheer.”

In 2003 — the same year Christine paid $22.3 million for one 8-acre island with a 27-room mansion, a tennis court, a pool and a golf course — the cold-hearted widow shipped Emily off to a boarding school for kids with special needs in Connecticut with a diagnosis of “reactive attachment disorder,” a condition in which people can’t relate to others.

Svenningsen left Emily at the school on weekends, while the rest of the students would go home with their families, the court filings say.

Svenningsen said she did bring Emily home on Christmas Eve, but when the girl threw a fit about being back home, she drove her back up to school the next day — Christmas morning.

It was around that time that she decided to give Emily up for readoption.

“It seemed difficult for Emily to deal with life in a household with one parent and five siblings. I thought it might be better for Emily to be raised as an only child, preferably in a two-parent family,” she said.

Campbell, who works at the boarding school with her husband, had bonded with Emily over the weekends and adopted her.

The school determined there was nothing mentally wrong with Emily, and discontinued her medication. She’s since moved to another school where she’s on the honor roll.

Svenningsen declined repeated requests for comment. Through an intercom at the family’s wooded Westchester estate, a woman said, “I can’t talk about anything.”

In an affidavit, Svenningsen acknowledged that adopting Emily might have been a mistake.

She said she and her husband, John — who was 27 years older than her — had decided to adopt a child from China because they had visited orphanages there and wanted to help. After they started the process, John was diagnosed with the lymphoma that would take his life.

“Maybe I should not have gone to China. Everyone advised me not to continue with the adoption, but I just wanted things to go on as planned. My world was falling apart. My husband had cancer. Somehow I thought if I stuck to the plan, everything would be okay,” she said.

Campbell’s filings say Svenningsen turned a cold shoulder to the girl even after she’d been readopted.

Campbell said she had a “chance encounter” with Emily’s former mom, and told her Emily would love to see her and her former siblings because she missed them.

Svenningsen said no.

With Jennifer H. Cunningham and Irving DeJohn