PAINT IT BLACK

LAWSUIT Remember DMITRI VAIL? In the Fifties, the city’s nouveau riche used to trample each other dashing from the bank with the thousands they paid Vail to immortalize them in oils. The paintings, framed in gold leaf, hung in many a custom home foyer right beside the head of Daddy’s latest six-point buck.

Now, Vail’s attorney paints a dismal picture of the artist’s life. Though named as a co-trustee of his late wife’s trust (worth millions in assets), the 86-year-old Vail now accepts Meals On Wheels service and sleeps on a cot in his kitchen, using the electric oven to stay warm. He must fend off “rats the size of cats” in his mansion on Armstrong Parkway, says lawyer BERNARD DOLENZ.

Dolenz has filed suit against NCNB Texas for failure to maintain the Armstrong house, which is part of the trust it supervises. While claiming almost $30,000 in fees over the last three years. Dolenz charges, NCNB has kept Vail on an allowance of $800 per month. Dolenz says the house’s utilities often cost more than that given its run-down electrical system and the fact that Vail usually keeps the house brightly lit because of his failing eyesight and “to ward off the rats.” Since the filing of the lawsuit, Dolenz says, NCNB has cut off all payments to the elderly painter.

Dolenz alleges that NCNB “has profiteered” at Vail’s expense by keeping Vail in the dark about the trust’s investments, denying him access to records, and even failing to notify him that he was a co-trustee. Dolenz is asking for $1 million in actual damages plus two weeks of profits from NCNB and its subsidiaries in punitive damages.

“We’ve got to put some teeth into the laws that protect helpless people from inept trust officers who care more about their banks than they do their beneficiaries,” warns Dolenz.

When asked to comment, NCNB spokesmen politely declined.