Bing Judged Incompetent, Wife Found in Contempt

A judge ruled former Metropolitan Opera impresario Sir Rudolf Bing mentally incompetent, found his wife in contempt of court and gave the go-ahead to have the couple’s 4-month-old marriage annulled.

State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Blyn on Wednesday found Carroll Bing, 47, in contempt because she ignored his order to bring Bing, 85, to court on Jan. 27.

Blyn, who downgraded Bing’s status from mentally impaired to incompetent, ordered her to have her husband in court by June 3.

Bing, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, married Carroll Douglas on Jan. 9 in a civil ceremony in Arlington, Va. The famed impresario’s friends questioned the union.

The couple traveled first to the Caribbean and then to England, where they were staying at a motel at Mirfield in Yorkshire, England. However, reports said they have left with no indications of where they were going.

If Carroll Bing does not have Sir Rudolf in court by June 3 she may have to pay legal fees incurred by the court-appointed conservator of Bing’s estate.

The judge also allowed the conservator, Paul Guth, a longtime friend of Bing, to start proceedings to annul the marriage.

In his contempt finding, Blyn read from a psychiatrist’s report that said Bing needed a “constant, safe, structured life style.”

“This odyssey on which (his wife) has dragged him is the opposite of what’s needed,” the judge said.

Millard Midonick, Bing’s court-appointed guardian, said Carroll Bing is the subject of a court order in Washington because of her own mental problems, including a romantic fixation on Pope John Paul II.