An Italian cat has stepped in to fill Trouble Helmsley's expensive shoes.
Last month, when Italian real estate magnate Maria Assunta died at age 94, she left €10 million, or more than $13 million, to her cat Tommaso. It's a wildly different life from the one Tommaso once lived – as a stray wandering the streets of Rome.
According to the U.K.'s Guardian, Assunta signed a handwritten will in 2009 directing her lawyers to find "the animal welfare body or association to which to leave the inheritance and the task of looking after the cat Tommaso."
Animals are not considered valid heirs under Italian law, so Tommaso was to be a beneficiary through a trustee, and in Tommaso's case, that turned out to be a nurse named Stefania, who met Assunta at a local park.
According to Stefania, Assunta was unassuming about her coffers. She said, "I had no idea the signora had such wealth."
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