Melbourne, Jan 17 : Former Penthouse Pet and Hustler centrefold model Madison Ashton has lost her bid to billionaire Richard Pratt’s fortune.

Supreme Court judge Paul Brereton ruled that the cardboard king’s promises were not iron clad and that Ashton should not receive 10 million dollars from Pratt’s widow Jeanne.

He found Ashton had already received 100,000 dollars and a Mercedes convertible four years before the billionaire’s death in April 2009, and that she agreed to “release all claims”.

Even though Justice Brereton agreed that Pratt had told Ms Ashton in November 2003 that he would establish two trusts worth 5 million dollars for her children, pay her 500,000 dollars a year and 66,000 dollars for expenses, he said the “mistress” arrangement between Pratt and Ashton was not a binding contract.

Ashton told the court last September she agreed to give up her lucrative career in the high-class escort business between 2003 and 2004 to become Pratt’s mistress.

She said that Pratt told her “that blonde bitch” (another of his mistresses, Shari-Lea Hitchcock) had “left me”, so the “position of mistress is now available” and promised to fund an accessories supply business and said he wanted her “to spend money on haute couture”.

“I need you to replace Shari. I need the physical contact from you,” the Daily Telegraph quoted him as telling her.

Hitchcock’s daughter with Pratt, Paula Hitchcock, 12, received almost 28.5 million dollars in his will.

Ashton said that Pratt told her that her previous husband and boyfriends were “losers”.

“You don’t need to go back into the escort business.

“You are too beautiful and good to waste your time in that business,” he told her.

While Justice Brereton found that some of the conversations Ashton said she had had with Pratt did not occur, he found some of her evidence was credible given “the extraordinary wealth involved and the extraordinary circumstances of this extraordinary case”.

The judge found her conversation with one of Pratt’s closest advisers, Tony Gray, was true as Gray did not give evidence to deny it. (ANI)