EstateofDenial.com: IRA cases reported on near daily basis

EstateofDenial.com hears on an almost daily basis of new Involuntary Redistribution of Assets (IRA) cases in which probate venues and/or probate instruments (wills, trusts, guardianships and powers of attorney) are used to loot assets of the dead and disabled/incapacitated.  That is significant for a small, relatively obscure web site like EoD.

We recently added a new entry called New Jersey Corruption to the EoD Links and Sources page.  This horrific story is detailed by a member of the Blasco family who says “My Father, a Vietnam Vet with a purple heart, is having his estate stolen by New Jersey’s Government Courts.”

These accounts, albeit familiar, are individually tragic and heartbreaking when taking into account the numerous lives harmed in each action.  We posted another similar case out of Ohio earlier this week.  Many other inquiries and pleas we receive are not published due to their sensitive nature or pending legal action.

What is most sad is while cries for help are desperately increasing, many people don’t understand the IRA issue, even more don’t bother listening and only a few care.  IRA targets – those alive or with any ability to speak – regularly lament how they never dreamed such acts of looting could so overtake their lives.  And routinely, these are people who completed their “proper estate planning” yet through opportunistic maneuvering by wannabe heirs and/or dishonest legal professionals, their wishes are ignored or subverted.

Another common thread is that targets or other parties at the forefront of dealing with these actions will tell of contacting all seemingly logical authorities, going through the appropriate processes and channels, doing everything that appears as a reasonable course to avoid an ugly dispute or prolonged, extensive legal battle.  Despite these efforts, dead ends or directions to civil court are all that are found.

Steal money or resources from most anywhere else, it’s a crime.  With estates, however, that’s not so often the case.  In fact, that is what makes the Brooke Astor estate case so important.

We’ve spent much time on the Astor case and defendants Anthony Marshall and Francis Morrissey because it is a criminal proceeding and will also ultimately provide a high profile, inside look as to how stealing from the dead and disabled/incapacitated can occur.  We hope it will become an important precedent supporting property rights as well as rights of inheritance.    Don’t let the dollar amounts intimidate you — versions of the same acts occur within estates of all sizes.  Here’s an excerpt from one of today’s stories:

Astor wasn’t forking anything over to Charlene willingly, at least not before 2003, Christensen testified.

“Mrs. Astor had a very strong wish to make her son happy,” the lawyer explained. “But she didn’t want to see money go to Charlene.”

That didn’t stop Marshall from making attempt after attempt to divert Astor millions his way.

Christensen showed jurors memos he received from Marshall proposing several doomed schemes: Tap Astor’s $60 million pot for charity! Award myself an $8 million “salary” for having given the banks some financial advice concerning that $60 million.

And — perhaps most audaciously — convince Astor to set up a Charlene Marshall trust fund!

Each of these schemes was detailed by Marshall in meticulous, numbers-crammed, single-spaced memos to Christensen.

Christensen turned thumbs down on all of these schemes — but not before billing his client, who was in fact Astor, not Marshall, for the time spent looking into them.

This shows not only the imaginative and persistent ends to which an alleged IRA perpetrator might go, but it also demonstrates that legal protection for which you think you are paying can have a self-serving bent contrary to your best interests.  And this attorney had a relationship with Brooke Astor for a decade!

Forewarned is forearmed.