Family Feud

Brooke's divorce gets costlier

The latest issue of the Republican National Committee's magazine First Monday has Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts on the cover with the caption "Integrity and independence in the U.S. Senate." But his integrity was questioned last week by Massachusetts Probate Judge Lawrence Perera. He ruled that Brooke had given "false testimony" in a private deposition taken by his wife's lawyers a year ago and that he "did not make a true and complete disclosure of his financial condition." Perera ordered that a copy of his 15-page ruling be sent to the district attorney for "such action as he may deem appropriate," meaning a possible perjury charge.

Brooke's problems arose out of his divorce struggle with Remigia, his Italian-born wife of 31 years. A year ago, their lawyers reached a settlement in which she got alimony of $1,500 a month and possession of their houses in the Boston suburb of Newton and on the Caribbean island of St. Martin. But Mrs. Brooke now claims the Senator misrepresented his finances and concealed from her his handling of a $100,000 insurance payment to her mother, Teresa Ferrari-Scacco, for a 1965 auto accident.

Brooke claims that his mother-in-law told him before her death in 1977 to take care of the money and even treat it as his own. He complied, putting $47,000 in his bank account and using some $30,000 of it as part of the down payment on his Watergate condominium.

His story began to unravel when Elder Daughter Remi leaked her father's deposition to the press. Reporters learned from it that Brooke had listed a $49,000 loan from a friend, Massachusetts Liquor Distributor A. Raymond Tye. But Brooke had not reported the loan in his financial report to the U.S. Senate. Actually, no such loan existed; Brooke admitted that it was a "misstatement." He had borrowed only $2,000 from Tye. The rest came from his mother-in-law's insurance settlement. In an attempt to end the controversy, he handed Perera a check two weeks ago for $30,193, which he said he owed to his mother-in-law's estate, and asked the judge to decide where it should go. Among the claimants is the Massachusetts public welfare department. Reason: by giving her funds to Brooke, Mrs. Ferrari-Scacco apparently qualified as an indigent and is said to have collected more than $20,000 in Medicaid and other benefits.

Last week Perera made no mention of the check in rapping Brooke's knuckles for his "mistake" in mingling his mother-in-law's money with his own and for "inadequate and careless bookkeeping." The judge offered Remigia a new trial and ordered Brooke to pay her court costs and attorney fees for the hearing. But Perera stopped short of finding that Brooke was in contempt of court or had "deliberately" misled his wife. Mrs. Brooke has ten days to make up her mind about a new trial. Whatever she decides, Brooke's chances of re-election to a third term this fall have been damaged. But Brooke has no intention of not running. At a pro-ERA rally in Boston last week, he shouted: "I am not a quitter."

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