Wednesday Weirdness: Adopting Your Adult Girlfriend UPDATED
Welcome to Wednesday Weirdness, a recurring theme where we post something truly weird and wacky in adoption or child welfare.
Today’s installment is using adoption in an unusually sick way to not pay the victim of a crime.
“Heir to a Texas air conditioning fortune and founder of his Wellington polo club, John Goodman is now fighting on multiple legal fronts. Investigators say Goodman drove drunk at twice the legal limit, sped through a stop sign and killed 24-year-old Scott Wilson.
The lawsuit filed by the victim’s parents reveals startling information, John Goodman has adopted his adult girlfriend.
“Adult adoptions happen often. This is certainly a unique situation,” said West Palm Beach attorney Elisha Roy, treasurer of the State Bar’s Family Law section.
The document says Goodman adopted Heather Hutchins (a.k.a. Heather Colby). The adoption was finalized in October, in Miami-Dade County. The document says Hutchins, 42, has testified she started dating Goodman in 2009 and, “it appears to be undisputed that they are still in a relationship today.”
The document indicates Hutchins has even been made a beneficiary of Goodman’s children’s trusts.
“The adoption declares Ms. Hutchins to be Mr. Goodman’s child, and legal heir, entitled to all of the rights and privileges of Mr. Goodman’s natural born children. Mr. Goodman has also filed a petition in the probate court to make Hutchins a beneficiary under the children’s trust entitling her to a one-third beneficiary interest in the trust.”
The document says, “the children’s trust provides for the mandatory payment of 70-percent of the income of the trust to a child once that child reaches the age of 35. While none of Mr. Goodman’s natural children have obtained the age of 35, Ms. Hutchins is 42 and is, therefore, immediately entitled to her proportionate share of income generated by the trust (i.e. one-third.)”
“I suppose the argument’s going to be, ‘Well, if she’s getting it, then by nature of the fact that she’s your girlfriend, then you too are getting it,'” said Roy.
That’s a big issue in the civil lawsuit, filed by the parents of Scott Wilson.
The judge writes in his recent ruling, “the court cannot ignore the practical implications of directing trust assets to Ms. Hutchins.” The judge adds, “the events border on the surreal and take the court into a legal twilight zone.”
John Goodman’s civil attorney tell CBS 12, adoption was done for estate planning purposes, to protect both his and her minor children, and ensure the stability of the family investments.
Attorney Elisha Roy says estate planning is usually the reason for adult adoptions, but says adopting a girlfriend or boyfriend is almost unheard of.”
Wellington polo magnate John Goodman adopts adult girlfriend
[CBS 12 1/30/12]
“The multimillionaire trust-fund heir adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend Heather Laruso Hutchins last fall, after being accused of drunk driving in a 2010 accident that left 23-year-old Scott Wilson dead.”
“Circuit Judge Glenn Kelly had previously ruled that the trust funds set up for his two biological children were off-limits in the lawsuit, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Court papers show that Goodman adopted Ms Hutchins in October of last year, CBS12.com reported.
‘My reaction was that it was both awful and brilliant,’ Belray Beach adoption attorney Charlotte Danciu told CBS12.com.
The adoption papers state that Hutchins, now a legal child of Goodman, is immediately entitled to at least a third of his trust.”
Judge Kelley wrote that the events are taking the court ‘into a legal twilight zone.’
Ms Danciu agreed. ‘Unless you intend to create the parent-child relationship, you are violating the letter of the law,’ she told CBS12.com.”
“Scott Wilson was a University of Central Florida graduate and was working as a civil engineer.
He had been driving his Hyundai home to Wellington to visit his family, according to the Palm Beach New Times when he was struck by Goodman’s Bentley convertible after he ran a stop sign.
Wilson’s car was knocked into a nearby canal, where he drowned.
Goodman was found to have a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit after the fatal 2010 crash, police reports show.
He will be criminally tried March 6, facing charges of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, and leaving the scene of a crash.
He could spend up to 30 years in prison if found guilty, the Palm Beach Post reports.
The civil trial will be some weeks later on March 27.
Goodman’s civil attorney Dan Bachi told myfoxorlando.com that the adoption was meant to secure the assets of his children and family investments, nothing more.
‘It has nothing to do with the lawsuit currently pending against him,’ Mr Bachi said.
Goodman’s father was the late Harold Goodman, who built a fortune from a heating and air conditioning manufacturing business.
JOHN GOODMAN’S WEALTH
Polo Club: $7.4million
78-acre horse farm: $3.8million (now pays $2,000/month rent)
Trusts of two children: Around $200million
Owns yacht, airplane, and polo horses
His family sold the business in 2004 for a reported $1.4 billion.
He converted his father’s horse farm into a polo ranch and later began building his empire.
His club became a magnate for the rich and famous, entertaining the likes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Sylvester Stallone, and Charlton Heston.
Even Madonna was spotted at the club, attending an International Polo Club match in 2009.
Goodman’s wealth is a point of a heated dispute. The Palm Beach New Times questioned the heir’s true assets, quoting Mr Wilson’s lawyer.
Attorney Chris Searcy said Goodman is much richer than his financial documents show. He is seeking punitive damages that will ‘sting (Goodman) badly without bankrupting him,’ Mr Searcy told the New Times.”
Florida polo tycoon, 48, adopts his girlfriend, 42, as his DAUGHTER ‘to protect his fortune from family of man killed in DUI crash’
[Daily Mail 2/1/12 by Beth Stebner]
Update: His sons are trying to block this adoption.
“The civil trial is set for March 27 and Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley had previously ruled that a trust set up for Goodman’s two minor children could not be considered as part of his financial worth if a jury awarded damages to the Wilsons.
Lawyers told the Post they estimate the adoption, which splits in three the trust the children were previously to divide in half, will net Hutchins nearly $9 million and will authorize her to seek up to $5 million in extra cash each year.
Dan Bachi, Goodman’s civil attorney, previously said Hutchins’ adoption was done to ensure the future stability of his children and family investments and had nothing to do with the pending civil lawsuit.
In the latest twist in the case, Miami attorney Joseph Rebak filed a motion in Miami-Dade court on behalf of Goodman’s children’s Delaware-based guardian ad litem, Jeffrey Goddess, asking the court to throw out the adoption.
“I have never seen anything like this in my 31, 32 years practicing law,” Rebak said Wednesday of the adoption. “Obviously we think it’s wrong and we are hoping to have it set aside.”
The motion says if Goodman wanted to protect Hutchins and take care of her financially “the obvious solution would be to marry her — not to make her his child.”
Goodman has yet to respond to the motion and no hearing date has been set. He is also due to face a criminal trial on March 6 on charges of DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of a crash.
If found guilty, he could face up to 30 years in prison.”
Teenage kids fight dad’s adoption of adult girlfriend
[Fox News 2/9/12]
Update 2: He settles the DUI lawsuit.
“John Goodman, a Florida multi-millionaire who adopted his girlfriend, settled a lawsuit by the parents of a young man he allegedly killed in a drunken crash.
Opening statements in Goodman’s criminal trial are scheduled to begin soon, The Palm Beach Post reported. He faces up to 30 years in prison if he is convicted of DUI manslaughter.
Investigators say Goodman, founder of the Polo Club International Palm Beach, struck Scott Wilson’s Hyundai after running a red light in February 2010 in Wellington, Fla. Goodman ran away, police said, while Wilson, 23, drowned in a canal.
Two hours later, Goodman’s blood alcohol level was twice the legal limit, police said.
In their wrongful death suit, Lili and William Wilson asked for as much as $100 million. The size of the settlement has not been made public, ABC News reported.
In October, Goodman adopted Heather Hutchins, 42, in an apparent move to protect some of his assets from litigation. Hutchins could get $200 million from a Goodman family trust in the next 20 years.
Neither of Goodman’s two biological children are 35, the age at which they would begin sharing in the trust.”
Man who adopted girlfriend settles lawsuit
[UPI 3/10/12]
Update 3: “A Florida appeals court has nullified a polo mogul’s adoption of his 42-year-old girlfriend in an apparent bid to tap his children’s trust fund and shield his assets from the family of a student he killed in a drunken crash.
The 3rd District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that John Bailey Goodman, founder of the International Polo Club in Palm Beach, had not notified his two children, their mother, their guardian or the parents of 23-year-old Scott Wilson, who had sued him for wrongful death over the February 2010 crash and were seeking damages.
Goodman’s attempt to conceal the adoption “constituted a fraud on the court,” the appellate judges wrote in a nine-page opinion.
He adopted his longtime paramour, 42-year-old Heather Anne Hutchins, while awaiting trial for the death of Wilson. A Miami-Dade County trial court approved the adoption in October 2011.
Besides the Wilsons’ lawsuit. Goodman, a multimillionaire, was involved in a court battle with his ex-wife over management of the children’s trust fund. His attorneys claimed he adopted Hutchins so she could help manage the the children’s money.
Under the adoption contract, Goodman agreed to pay Hutchins a lifetime total of $16.75 million, according to court records cited by The Miami Herald. Her payout included $5 million to sign, $3 million by the end of 2012 and lifetime payments of $8.75 million.
“Even if the motivation and the means for securing it were not so reprehensible, I believe … the adoption of a paramour is so contrary to the beneficent purposes of such an action that no such judgment can ever be sustained,” Senior Judge Alan Schwartz wrote in a special concurrence.
In March 2012, Goodman was convicted of DUI manslaughter with failure to render aid and vehicular homicide. He was sentenced 16 years in prison.”
Court nullifies polo mogul’s adoption of girlfriend
[USA Today 3/27/13 by Mike Winter]
Weird Update 4:
“The Florida Adoption Council — a collection of attorneys, law professors, social workers, mental health workers and others who work on adoptions statewide — this week issued a 13-page brief speaking out against the state’s 3rd District Court of Appeal’s March ruling throwing out Goodman’s adoption of then 42-year-old Heather Anne Hutchins. The appellate court, in part, ruled that Goodman should have given notice to attorneys for this other two children because the adoption would have a financial impact on them.
Goodman’s adoption of Hutchins as he battled both a wrongful death suit and DUI manslaughter charges in the Feb. 2010 death of Scott Wilson made international headlines. Though the Texas heir’s legal team said it was a move to protect against the mismanagement of his children’s trust fund, others viewed it as Goodman’s attempt to dip into his children’s trust by granting his girlfriend free and clear access to a third of it.
Jeanne M. Tate, a Florida Adoption Council board member and the attorney who filed the brief, was careful to point out when reached by phone Thursday that the group’s contention with the ruling only pertains to the notice issue. Tate said the council has no opinion regarding the appellate court’s stance that the adult adoption of a paramour runs afoul of what adoption laws were intended for.
Specifically, Tate said, the court’s ruling that the other children needed to be notified of the adoption and the panel’s statements saying that attorneys for the children could contest the adoption at any time is in direct contrast to state law and Florida Supreme Court rulings in similar cases. Also, Tate said, requiring those who want to adopt to tell anyone with a financial interest about it beforehand would create a “legal morass” that would imperil the entire system.
“I know this was an adult adoption so it’s easy to get offended,” Tate said, “but what people need to understand is that this will apply for children.”
Perhaps the chief problem with the ruling, according to Tate, is that the wording used by the appellate judges leaves the door open for fellow heirs in adoption cases to contest the adoption years or even decades later.
Tate points out the appellate ruling makes no mention of Florida’s adoption statute of repose, which strictly limits motions to vacate adoption orders to one year — even in cases of fraud. The appealing parties in Goodman’s case filed their objections before the one-year limit, rendering that point moot. But Tate and others say people in similar cases involving children can nonetheless use the wording in the 3rd DCA ruling to try and nullify previously iron-clad adoptions.
The adoption council’s filing echoes part of the legal pleadings Goodman’s attorneys filed in the case last week contesting the ruling and asking the 3rd DCA to rehear the case, which surrounds Goodman’s adoption of Hutchins in Miami-Dade County.
Goodman attorney Eric Stettin, in that filing, said the ruling devastates Florida adoption laws. “A child adopted in Tampa or Orlando should not be punished because their parents created a trust, and the prior existing beneficiaries did not receive notice,” Stettin wrote.
Stettin went on to say that the court’s ruling contained several factual errors — including an estimate that Goodman’s adoption of Hutchins entitled her to upwards of $8.5 million, a figure Stettin said was based on nothing other than “rank speculation.”
Although Goodman’s team wants the adoption reinstated, Tate said that all the Florida Adoption Council wants is for the court to take back its stance regarding whether Goodman’s heirs were entitled to notice that it was happening.
Joseph Rebak, an attorney representing the court-appointed guardian for Goodman’s two teen-aged children, said he couldn’t comment on the latest action in the case. He did say, however, that his clients oppose the council’s brief and plan to file an answer in opposition to it.
The latest filings come as Goodman’s criminal legal team continues to fight his DUI manslaughter conviction and 16-year prison sentence in the death of Wilson, 23.
Goodman’s defense team recently got the 4th District Court of Appeal to halt its proceedings on that front and send the case temporarily back to the trial court. There, Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath is expected to interview juror Dennis DeMartin on April 29 concerning allegations that he withheld the fact that his ex-wife had a DUI arrest before he was seated as a panelist on Goodman’s 2012 trial.
DeMartin, of Delray Beach, has said he blocked out the memory of the arrest due to a stroke he suffered in 1988.
Until now, Goodman’s most promising avenue for possibly overturning his conviction was the drinking experiment DeMartin said he conducted the night before he and the five other jurors in Goodman’s trial began deliberating the case last year.
Goodman’s criminal defense team is hoping the issues surrounding DeMartin’s make Goodman’s case worthy of a retrial. In the meantime, Guy Fronstin, a member of Goodman’s criminal defense team, believes that the council’s stance on the adoption will help secure a victory for Goodman in that arena, as well.
“Our Motion and the independent opinion in the Florida Adoption Council’s brief opposing the decision to overturn the adoption, speak volumes about the need to uphold the laws as they have been written and the need for fairness in these types of issues,” Fronstin said. “We believe that upon review, Mr. Goodman’s actions will be deemed appropriate and in accordance with Florida law.””
[Palm Beach Post 4/18/13 by Daphne Duret]
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