Dueling financial portraits of John Paterakis emerge in legal battle between widow and children over his estate
There is the Paterakis who was awash in cash, stashing millions of dollars in safes and "play money" accounts that he used for gambling or buying expensive gifts. That at least is the view from
But in
How much Paterakis left behind after his death at age 87 and how much will go to his second wife are at the crux of a family feud playing out in multiple court filings. Paterakis, who turned a small rowhouse bakery into a multi-million-dollar conglomerate and became an influential campaign contributor known as the "bread man" to local and state politicians, had lived a life in which personal and financial details were kept mostly private.
Now, some of that's becoming public. Orphans' Court scheduled a three-day hearing for mid-March on
"I think it's going to be messy," said
At issue is reconciling what
The suit "sure does paint a picture of a man who kept a lot of cash on hand," Vallario said.
Any cash a person keeps around must be reported in an estate inventory, she said.
Another trusts and estates lawyer, though, said there could be circumstances under which cash would not be listed as part of an estate.
"If personal representatives understand that the cash is the property of the trust, it wouldn't be listed as inventory [of the estate]," said
Having assets in a trust, and not in the estate that is subject to probate, is not unusual, especially for wealthy people.
"There are legitimate ways to shelter income," said
Paterakis' will, submitted to the
"If I leave any written instructions regarding the distribution of any assets," Paterakis said in the will signed about a year earlier, he hoped and expected beneficiaries would "carry out my instructions and honor my wishes."
An initial inventory of Paterakis' estate was filed on
Paterakis was a major supporter of
On
Among the expenses were credit card and medical bills and about
According to
Documents filed in Orphans' Court show trouble brewing between
On
Those negotiations apparently failed because a month later,
How much of
In life as in death,
That there would be a squabble over how that is dispersed is "not surprising" given the family dynamics, Tanouye said.
"Speaking from my own practice, the vast majority of elective share cases involve an underlying dispute between the surviving spouse and children from an earlier marriage," he said.
Paterakis married
"When someone very wealthy gets married late in life, that's when red flags go up with estate planning attorneys," Tanouye said. "If there is explicit animosity already, that's a larger red flag. And if there's a lot of money that's at stake, to mix metaphors, that's almost strike three.
"You're almost guaranteed litigation," he said.
But there is usually great motivation to handle any disputes without going to court, he said, both to keep from airing any dirty laundry and to preserve as much wealth as possible from going through an expensive legal battle.
"They almost always settle," Tanouye said. "There has to be some amount of money that would make this go away. Are the children willing to give that up to avoid the fight?"
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