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Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz, 49, and his wife Princess Hend seemed decorous, at least at first. Indeed, he is still listed as Saudi Arabia's Deputy Minister of Defense and is a brother of Saudi King Fahd. But the couple, like Mohammad and Tarek, tended to party all night and sleep all day, and traveled in a convoy of three limousines, two security cars and a van. They also became chummy with Alvin Malnik, a Miami attorney said to have underworld connections. It was not until last February, however, that their image problem got serious. After a series of reports that they were mistreating their help, Dade County police raided the royal couple's condominium, searching for an "enslaved" servant. A melee ensued. Police say the princess screamed at them, shouting, "I'll break your nose!" She did not, but one policewoman charges that Hend bit her arm. "It was very much a bitch-and-bite match," says a U.S. State Department emissary who tried to conciliate afterward. No slave was discovered. But the Saudi government precluded any future hassles by persuading the State Department to grant Turki diplomatic immunity. Florida officials are fuming.
When Prince Turki and Princess Hend moved to wealthy Indian Creek, neighbors were soon taken aback. The prince's small herd of goats began to roam onto adjacent lawns. Last spring the royal couple threw a party for their three-year-old son that featured circus performers, an orchestra, fireworks, kosher hot dogs and a birthday cake on which live flamingos perched. The final straw came when the prince and princess renovated their house—once the staid Woolworth mansion—in dissonant contemporary style, including a discothèque and a device that simulates thunder. "It looks," a local arbiter says, "as if they just bought the entire lobby of the Ramada Inn."
Even more ostentatious is Mohammad's residential compound, now under construction on a chunk of Miami property he bought for $4 million. A contractor on the unfinished Xanadu is suing the sheik for $275,000, and one of the sheik's builders says it will be "the most expensive piece of crap ever put on this earth." It is to include a bowling alley, an aviary, computer-controlled fountains, five waterfalls, two swimming pools, moving sidewalks, a bomb shelter and a mosque.
Beginning this spring, the déclassé clan tried to turn over a new leaf; typically, it was gold. They became philanthropists, giving away as much as $1 million in a few months, apparently to buy good will. Turki gave $300,000 to the University of Miami School of Medicine. Mohammad, among his other donations, doled out $50,000 to Washington and $30,000 to Opa-Locka, Fla. (pop. 14,600). At least one offer was refused: when Tarek volunteered to pay for a new $161 million Miami stadium, city officials said it was an attempt to undermine local support for Israel.