The Probate Lawyer Blog

Ugo di Portanova.  Quite a name . . . and quite a story.  The Houston Chronicle had an interesting feature today about this heir to a massive oil fortune.  Di Portanova has assets valued at more than $65 million (which he largely inherited).  So you'd assume he'd wield great power with all that money, right?  Sadly, it's just the opposite.

Di Portanova has been declared legally incapacitated (at least in part) continuously since 1967.  After a long fight, he won the right to manage $1,000 per month, marry who he wants, and make a will.  But he lost his quest to end the guardianship, so he has almost no say in management of his own money or other important decisions in his life.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia, di Portanova, now age 74, has lost more than the right to make most of his financial and other decisions.  He has also lost many millions of dollars to exorbitant legal fees, guardian and trustee salaries, court costs, and related expenses.  The Chronicle reviewed decades worth of court records and tabbed the total bill at more than $50 million. 

A federal judge has decided that it's time for actor Wesley Snipes to begin serving three years in jail, which he had been sentenced to two and a half years ago.  The star of such films as Blade, White Men Can't Jump, and U.S. Marshals was convicted of three misdemeanor sentences for willful tax evasion on May 1, 2008.  After pursuing appeals (which failed) Snipes has been free on bail, but that now has come to end.

The Judge ruled:

The Defendant Snipes had a fair trial; he has had a full, fair and thorough review of his conviction and sentence by the Court of Appeals; and he has had a full, fair, and thorough review of his presents claims, during all of which he has remained at liberty.  The time has come for the judgment to be enforced.

You can read the Judge's full decision here.

Trying to prove that you are the secret daughter of Vernon Presley, and half-sister to Elvis Presley, is no simple task.  It's much more complicated when the DNA proof that demonstrates this also establishes that Elvis Presley is alive. 

[If you haven't read my prior articles about the Eliza Presley case, you can click here to catch up.]

If you stop and think about it, the task is so daunting to almost be insurmountable.  Eliza Presley and her lawyer are trying to convince a judge to accept evidence and issue an order that would mean what the world believed to be fact, for more than 30 years, was actually fiction. 

This mission is the culmination of Eliza's quest which started almost 20 years ago -- when she had no idea that her search to find her biological father would lead her to this.

Former baseball manager George "Sparky" Anderson, a Hall of Fame coach who led both the Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds to World Series titles, died on November 4, 2010 because of complications from dementia.  He was 76 years old.  Sparky was a truly-beloved sports figure who will be sorely missed, as described in this article from the Detroit Free Press.

His death comes during National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness month.  Dementia is most often caused by Alzheimer's disease and is a growing epidemic in our country.  In fact, every 70 seconds, someone else in America develops Alzheimer's disease.  It now affects over 5.3 million Americans.

Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, just won't stop pursuing claims involving his late son's estate, even though judges keep telling him to . . . [wait for it] . . . Beat It!  

Joe Jackson's efforts to have the administrators of the King of Pop's estate removed in court have failed.  Here's our last article discussing his failed attempts.  The probate judge ruled he didn't have legal "standing" (meaning the right to bring the claim in court) to fight against the executors because he was not a beneficiary.  In other words, because he wouldn't inherit anything, it wasn't his right to complain about what the executors were doing.