Monthly Archives: April 2010

Detroit Free Press article on celebrity estate fights

This past Sunday’s Detroit Free Press featured an article, written by business columnist Susan Tompor, about “Trial & Heirs:  Famous Fortune Fights!” and how families can learn from celebrity estate fights.  Here’s part of it:

What can you learn about estate planning from TMZ.com, the celebrity gossip site?  TrialAndHeirs_Book_angle

Plenty. Errors involving celebrity estates can motivate everyday families to talk ahead of time about who gets Mom’s blown-glass collection — long before things get overblown.

Or at least that’s the theory being promoted by Troy attorneys Danielle B. and Andrew W. Mayoras.

“The reality is we’re a celebrity-based culture, for better or worse,” said Danielle, an estate planning attorney.

The couple, both partners at Barron, Rosenberg, Mayoras & Mayoras in Troy, popped up last year on TV’s “Rachael Ray Show” — you can see the interview on YouTube.com — to talk about their book, “Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights!”

Andrew also has a blog, www.probatelawyerblog.com, that tracks the twists and turns in celebrity estate battles, such as the struggle

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April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

Did insurance fraud led to murder of an elderly woman?

The Stephen Hilbert family is well known in Indiana.  Hilbert founded insurance giant Conseco, which he ran until he was forced out because he owed the company hundreds of millions of dollars.  When the company sued Hilbert to collect the giant debt, he tried to hide behind a series of trusts to shelter his fortune.  Our book, Trial & Heirs:  Famous Fortune Fights!, includes the Hilbert story to highlight what trusts are not intended to be used for.

But now Stephen Hilbert and his family are in the news for a different reason.  Hilbert’s mother-in-law, Germaine “Suzy” Tomlinson, died under very questionable circumstances on September 28, 2008 at age 74.

Her death was ruled an accident.  Hilbert and his wife aren’t so sure.  Tomlinson was found fully dressed, face down in her bathtub, where she had drowned after a late night of drinking at a night club.   [See picture which reportedly was taken the night before she died] Tomlinson

There was broken glass, a shelf knocked over and a

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April 25, 2010 | Leave a comment

NY Times has interesting feature about Mark Twain’s will

Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Samuel L. Clemens, better known as Mark Twain.  The New York Times commemorated his passing with an interesting article about his final wishes.  The reporter dug up a copy of his handwritten will from the dusty archives of the probate court in Redding, Connecticut, which Twain called home until he died.  

The Times also published copies of other probate records from his estate, including a detailed inventory that listed the property he owned at death.  The executors reported his assets to be worth $541,136.07 (give or take a few cents) as of the date of his passing.  Not a bad sum for a man who found himself broke late in life and rebuilt his fortune in the ten years before he passed.

His largest asset was “50 shares of the capital stock of the Mark Twain Company” valued at $200,000.  He owned a great deal of other stock, a 230-acre homestead, some automobiles, three horses and a cow.  The court documents

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April 23, 2010 | Leave a comment

The crazy claims of the Michael Jackson Estate

Given MJ’s eccentricities in life, and the craziness that has surrounded Michael Jackson estate since he died, it is no surprise that Michael Jackson’s estate executors are busy denying wild claims left and right. 

TMZ has a list of the wackiest ones:

  • Jose Freddie Vallejos asked for $3.3 million to reimburse Los Angeles for the costs of the King of Pop’s memorial service.
  • A homeschooler, Claire McMillan, is seeking $2 million.
  • Michael, according to Nona Paris Lola Ankhesenamun Jackson (try saying that three times fast), was actually married to her, so Nona of course wants custody of the three kids.
  • Richard Lapointe claimed he’s owed $5 million for a memorabilia auction that was wrongly canceled.
  • And, best of all, a woman is convinced that Jackson wiretapped her telephone and had organized criminals watch her.  She wants a mere $50 million.

You can read TMZ’s coverage of these claims, which were all formally denied last week by Howard Weitzman, the estate’s attorney.  This means the claimants now have to initial

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April 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Steve McNair’s widow facing estate tax nightmare

The Steve McNair Estate has been relatively quiet lately, after a fast start with plenty of fireworks.  You can read the Probate Lawyer Blog’s prior articles about it here.  But despite the apparent calm, there are still lessons to be learned.  Steve McNair Estate

The lawyers for McNair’s widow, Mechelle McNair, recently had to file a petition with the Tennessee probate court asking for funds to be released from a frozen trust account to pay taxes.  Ho hum, right?  Not so fast.

How much did she have to withdraw?  A cool $3.72 million — all for state and federal estate taxes that were due earlier this month.  And that’s just the estimated taxes that she has to pay now.  When the final determination of how much she, as the surviving spouse, will receive is calculated, that price tag may increase.  Her attorneys anticipate filing an amended tax return which may include even more money due to the IRS.

Why should this matter to you?  If Steve McNair had done the proper estate

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April 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

Dennis Hopper’s deathbed divorce battle getting uglier

Actor Dennis Hopper, at 73 years of age, is dying from cancer.  To make matters worse, he is battling in a nasty divorce that pits his three adult children, from prior marriages, against his wife, Victoria Duffy-Hopper (she’s number five for Hopper, if you’re keeping score), over whether she’ll inherit anything when he passes.  Here is The Probate Lawyer Blog’s prior article on the case.  

ABC News posted its Top Ten “most hurtful accusations” from the court fight, including:

  • Hopper’s assistant claimed Duffy-Hopper threatened to kill her.
  • Duffy-Hopper called Hopper an abuser who once threatened that “something bad is going to happen to you and you won’t see it coming”.
  • Hopper accused his wife of stealing millions worth of artwork and other valuables from him, and from secretly taking away their young daughter, preventing him from having a final Christmas with her.
  • Hopper’s daughter, Marin Hopper (who is six years older than her “step-mother”), feels frightened for her safety because of Duffy-Hopper.
  • Duffy-Hopper claims that Marin and the other adult
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April 8, 2010 | Leave a comment

Farrah Fawcett trust in the midst of ugly lawsuit

Richard Francis is the trustee of The Fawcett Living Trust, Farrah Fawcett’s trust which details how she wanted her money to pass.  You can read the Probate Lawyer Blog’s prior article discussing this interesting trust here.  

On behalf of the trust, Francis sued Hollywood producer Craig Nevius accusing him of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Fawcett’s company and botching production of a television documentary showing her struggles with cancer.

Nevius is not taking the lawsuit lying down.  In fact, he says the entire case is a thinly-disguised attempt by Francis to use money from Fawcett’s trust to protect his own interests.  Nevius had already sued Francis, as well as Ryan O’Neal (Fawcett’s longtime companion) and her friend Alana Stewart when Nevius felt they wrongly excluded him from producing the documentary, which aired on NBC in May of 2009.  In other words, Nevius says that this lawsuit by Francis is retaliation to get back at him for his lawsuit.

But, that’s just the beginning of the fireworks.  Nevius

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April 6, 2010 | 2 Comments

Tasha Tudor Estate: Will contest rages over estate of illustrator Tasha Tudor

Tasha Tudor was a beloved children’s book illustrator and author who was considered by many to be a 19-century Martha Stewart.  She lived as if it was the 1800s, on a New England farm.  She even raised her four children for years without electricity or running water.  She illustrated such classics as The Wind in the Willows, The Night Before Christmas, and The Secret Garden.  Tasha Tudor estate

Tudor died at the age of 92 on June 18, 2008, eccentric to the end.  According to the New York Times, she claimed to be the reincarnation of a sea captain’s wife who lived in the early 19th Century and she strove to replicate that life.  Tudor said that, after she passed, she intended to return to the 1830s.

Tasha Tudor estate has been estimated to be worth more that two million dollars.  She left almost all of it to only one of her four children.

The will was reportedly signed in 2001 and left everything to her son Seth, and his son Winslow, except

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April 6, 2010 | 1 Comment