Man Fights Will, Says He Was Lawmaker’s Lover

WESTPORT, Conn. — A man contesting the handling of the will of the late U.S. Rep. Stewart B. McKinney disputes official reports that McKinney contracted AIDS from blood transfusions, saying that for five years he was the Connecticut congressman’s lover.

McKinney, 56, a liberal Republican who died in 1987 during his ninth term in Congress, left a car and a 40% share of his Washington house to the man, Arnold R. Denson, according to documents on file in Probate Court. Denson’s share of the estate is worth at least $59,200.

Denson displayed photographs, bills and other documents to support his claim.

Vic Basil, former executive director of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, also said that Denson and McKinney were lovers. The Washington-based Human Rights Campaign Fund is the nation’s largest gay-lesbian political action group and lobbying organization.

McKinney’s wife, Lucie, denied that her husband was homosexual.

Denson, 34, a real estate agent, said the two lived together in McKinney’s Washington home. Lucie McKinney remained in Connecticut, where the congressman spent most weekends.

McKinney’s family learned of the affair when he was on his death bed, Denson says. He said he agreed not to reveal the relationship at the family’s request and was told that in exchange for his silence he would receive the property willed to him.

But Denson has not received his inheritance and is battling Lucie McKinney in Probate Court in Westport. He decided to speak publicly after a hearing Monday.

Cesar Caceres, McKinney’s physician, issued a statement the day of McKinney’s death on May 7, 1987, saying that McKinney had contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion he received after coronary bypass surgery in 1979.

When informed of Denson’s statement, Lucie McKinney on Monday again denied that her husband was homosexual.

Her attorney, Lawrence J. Halloran, also disputed Denson’s claim. He said that McKinney and Denson were friends and business associates, that McKinney lived alone in Washington and that Denson rented an apartment attached to McKinney’s home.

Denson, a divorced father of two, said he believes McKinney was already infected with AIDS when they met in 1982, and said two previous lovers of McKinney have died of AIDS.

Denson said he has recently tested negative for the virus that causes AIDS and has abstained from sex since McKinney’s death.

The estate could be wiped out by a claim filed by Lucie McKinney, who is an heir to the Procter & Gamble fortune as well as to an oil and railroad fortune. She testified Monday that her husband borrowed $432,552 from her trust fund and promised to pay her back.