In life, William Donald Schaefer nurtured the image of himself as an inspired, efficient technocrat surrounded by hard-working aides, many of them women.

In the final months before his death on April 18, 2011, a similar inspirational tale was spun of an aging lion revered by adoring friends.

It wasn’t really like that, say a half dozen people close to the situation.

They say the former Maryland governor and four-term Baltimore mayor was unhappy, even despondent, in his last years, isolated from some of his best friends and caught in a messy power struggle between two women who fought for his attention.

“He definitely had a melancholy edge,” said Patti Marchitto, his personal nurse. “He didn’t feel useful and he was upset by his lack of control over his life.”

During the lifelong bachelor’s public career, Schaefer told his most trusted aides that he would “take care” of them in return for their loyalty.

Thus when Schaefer’s will was released May 18 and named only a small number of aides and friends as beneficiaries, bitterness erupted in several quarters.

In particular, some Schaefer acolytes expressed resentment that Lainy Lebow-Sachs – who choreographed three days of memorial ceremonies prior to the governor’s burial – was given the lion’s share of his estate.

This included a $500,000 cash gift and 25% of the estate’s residual, worth at least another $350,000.

“I was hurt, angry and felt unappreciated,” said a former high-level Schaefer staffer, who was not mentioned in the will and insisted that the omission was not the intention of the man “I gave my all to.”

No one has challenged the 2009 will, but these insiders believe that Lebow-Sachs exerted too much power over Schaefer.

She started off at Baltimore City Hall in 1979 as a lowly scheduler for Mayor Schaefer. By 1996, when she left government service to become executive vice president of external relations at the Johns Hopkins Kennedy Krieger Institute, she was considered the “go-to person” to reach the governor.

Reached by phone last night, Lebow-Sachs declined to engage with a reporter, saying, “I’m not responding to this. I’m not responding to you.”

Friendship with Jeanne Bell

On October 13, 1999, Schaefer gave Lebow-Sachs power of attorney to “transact all business and generally to do and perform all things and make, execute and acknowledge all contracts, orders, deeds, writings, assurances and instruments” on his behalf, including “any business or businesses (whether corporate or otherwise) which I own or in which I may have an interest.”

The document was signed in the Baltimore law offices of Gordon, Feinblatt, where Schaefer’s attorney, Zelig Robinson, was then a partner.

About the same time, following the death of his longtime companion, Hilda Mae Snoops in June 1999, Schaefer began dating Jeanne Bell, sources say.

She was 27 years his junior and a resident of Locust Point – someone he’d originally met back in his City Hall days.

A photo of Bell, then married and named Rule, presenting Mayor-elect Schaefer with a birthday cake was taken by the Baltimore News American in 1971. (See the top of this article.)

Outside the public eye, the two dined together and went on vacations to Ocean City during Schaefer’s two terms as Maryland Comptroller (1999-2007).

“It was trouble from the start. Jeanne tried to get rid of Lainy’s influence, but couldn’t,” said a Schaefer insider.

A man who knew both women said this: “Jeanne was very down to earth. She’d talk to Don about her dog and what they’re going to do at the beach. Lainy was totally different, very elegant and a take-charge type. She called herself ‘the governor’s best friend.’

“It was trouble from the start. Jeanne tried to get rid of Lainy’s influence, but couldn’t. Lainy would call the governor constantly when they were down in Ocean City. And Lainy wanted him all to herself.”

The rivalry intensified in 2008, when Lebow-Sachs wanted to move Schaefer from the Pasadena townhouse, where he retired after leaving the comptroller’s office, to a retirement home.

Schaefer resisted the move and was backed by Bell, whom the ex-governor gave power of attorney. Bell used that to turn away movers who had come to pack up his possessions.

In a celebrated bit of domestic theater – confirmed by Schaefer himself to The Baltimore Sun – Lebow-Sachs took Schaefer to a three-hour lunch at Petit Louis in Roland Park, while the movers took his belongings and furniture to the Charlestown Retirement Community in Catonsville.

A surprised Schaefer was then driven to the retirement home by his chauffeur, Ross H. Freistat.

Leaked Will

Bell paid “a big price” for having opposed Lebow-Sachs, according to one insider.

Last night The Sun disclosed that a will signed by Schaefer in 2005 gave Jeanne Bell $200,000 in cash, as well as the Pasadena townhouse and 25% of what remained of his estate after it was distributed.

However, a will signed by Schaefer in 2009 – and filed in court on May 17 as his “last will and testament” – left Bell with no cash or real estate, and only the governor’s stamp and plate collection.

In both wills, Lebow-Sachs was given $500,000 in cash and 25% of the estate’s residual.

In the 2005 will, Lebow-Sachs was named the estate’s co-executor with Bell and Gene Raynor, the former Maryland elections chief, according to The Sun.

The 2009 will left out Bell and Raynor and named Lebow-Sachs as executor along with attorney Robinson.

The 2009 will left out Jeanne Bell and Gene Raynor and named Lebow-Sachs as executor along with attorney Zelig Robinson.

Reached by phone at her Locust Point home on Monday, Bell declined to be interviewed. She said she was “still in mourning” and did not want to talk about the late governor, his will or their relationship.

Lebow-Sachs, asked to comment on the Sun’s story about the 2005 will, said, “I haven’t seen it, I don’t even know what it says.”

Asked if she had a hand in squeezing Bell out of the will, Lebow-Sachs replied, “I had nothing to do with it.”

Old Friends Turned Away

Sources said the blow-up between Lebow-Sachs and Bell took a toll on Schaefer, who felt intense loyalty to both women. He held out the hope that things could be patched up, but they never were.

Bell flatly refused to visit Schaefer at the retirement home and the two apparently never saw each other again, although they continued to talk on the telephone.

The former governor reportedly became increasingly isolated and unhappy at the home.

Two people interviewed by The Brew said that Freistat, Schaefer’s chauffeur and de-facto security guard, arbitrarily barred them from visiting the ex-governor.

Wilsie Haber, who lived in Lewes, Delaware, said she was turned away when she came to the Charlestown compound in 2009 at Schaefer’s invitation.

“My stepdaughter drove me over and we pulled up to the gate, but they refused to let us in. It was an awful feeling. I called Ross [Freistat] and he said Donald was taking no visitors and no phone calls that day. He’s sleeping, Ross said, but I could hear Donald in the background talking to someone.”

Haber said she was called that evening by Schaefer. “We did discuss why I didn’t see him, and I only said it didn’t work out – I didn’t want to upset him – and he said, ‘Well, let’s try it again.’”

Haber said the two never did manage to meet, though they talked often on the phone until his death in April.

Freistat denied that the governor was isolated and that some friends were denied access to his apartment.

He told The Brew that only one person, J. Michael Schaefer (a Baltimore lawyer and no relation to the governor), was barred from the premises. “And that was the governor’s choice,” Freistat said.

“She did yeoman’s duty”

Lebow-Sachs has her defenders, who dismiss her critics as self-serving and self-interested.

“She was a trusted friend,” said Freistat, while others noted that Gov. Schaefer often described her as the daughter he never had.

“I know many people who are supportive of Lainy and everything she did for him,” said Michael D. Golden, press secretary for Comptroller Schaefer and currently director of external affairs for the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.

“She was with him for many years. She did yeoman’s duty. I have to admit I haven’t always seen eye to eye with Lainy, but I have to give her a lot of credit.”

Golden said he was not surprised that Lebow-Sachs got a much larger bequest than the others, including Karen Blair, who served as Schaefer’s personal secretary for 40 years and continued to work with the governor in the months prior to his death.

“Everyone thought Lainy would wind up the main beneficiary.”

– FERN SHEN contributed to this story.