Trustee of Estate Misappropriates Children’s Inheritance
A local lawyer and brother of a New Jersey woman, set up a trust for his sister. He made himself the trustee, and was responsible for paying his sister’s living expenses and distributing the balance of the trust to her children upon her death.
The woman’s children retained Maggs & McDermott to pursue their inheritance after their mother’s death. Based upon a lengthy review of numerous documents, Maggs & McDermott sued the lawyer and obtained an order from the Court that he account for the funds of the trust while he was the trustee. The lawyer claimed that he had conducted himself properly as the trustee, and that he had properly spent all of the trust’s funds during the woman’s lifetime.
Maggs & McDermott established that the lawyer had wrongfully co-mingled assets and had used the trust for his own personal expenses. Ultimately, Maggs & McDermott obtained judgment against the lawyer for Consumer Fraud in the amount of $334,681.36
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