A New York judge has dramatically reduced the $12 million trust fund the late Leona Helmsley left to her ill-tempered pooch, Trouble.
Surrogate Judge Renee Roth has signed off on a deal that gives $10 million to charity, leaving 9-year-old Trouble with a measly $2 million, The New York Post reported Monday.
The trustees of Trouble’s trust fund said the pooch didn’t need the amount of money provided by her late owner.
They received permission from Judge Roth to reduce the fund by giving $10 million to Helmsley’s multibillion-dollar charitable foundation.
The deal approved by Roth also gives Helmsley’s two disinherited grandchildren $6 million in exchange for withdrawing their objections to her will.
The Helmsley kids had claimed their grandmother was not of sound mind when she signed the will. Gee..ya think?
I’d bitch about this if I were Trouble.
No matter what you think about Leona Helmsley, this is bad. She got the money. She wrote a proper will. And she was of sound enough mind to run large complicated business until the last day. Just because the will is odd should not be a reason to overrun what owner of the money wanted to be done with it.
What part of the money was earned by her grandchildren or worse: by the judge who made the decision?
Slippery slope for the judges to eventually chose how we spend our money while alive.
#2-dusan maletic,
This is not bad, there is no reason that her heirs should not be able to contest her will. She is dead, who cares what she wanted her money to go toward. I don’t think much of her estate should be passed on, after a few million, it should seized as taxes. If she is leaving millions to a dog, should the dog be allowed to leave that money to whatever it wants to?
The dog is not an heir. The dog is property. The dog should go to an heir.
In reference to the picture, I believe that threesome marriage is legal now in Cali.
My father left a $10.000 CD to me with with instructions that I was to use the interest for feed and vets for his dog. The rest of the family went ballistic. But you know that dog was at his side till the day he died unlike the family. After doc-dog dies I will give the money to the local animal shelter. Humans are a sorry lot.
This is not as uncommon as people think and it’s shocking to most people to imagine that after they are gone people who they didn’t want to leave anything to will probably end up with some of your estate anyway. It’s almost routine that judges and lawyers disregard the instructions left in a Will and distribute estates according to the wishes of the survivors. When you have a Will drawn up, make sure it’s legally bullet-proof by having numerous lawyers review it, and that’s still no guarantee that the Will won’t be challenged in court or some lawyer will give in to the whining of pissed off family members.