Welcome to Wednesday Weirdness, a recurring theme where we post something truly weird and wacky in adoption or child welfare.
“A wealthy widow who adopted a Chinese girl and then decided to give her up for re-adoption ten years later has been ordered by a court to give her a portion of her $250million estate.
In 1996, John and Christine Svenningsen of Westchester, New York, adopted a baby girl, who they named Emily Fuqui Svenningsen, to add to their brood of four biological children.
Right before the adoption was finalized, they had another biological child and husband John was diagnosed with cancer.
According to court documents, on May 6, 1996, the Svenningsens signed an adoption agreement stating they would not abandon Emily or ‘transfer or have [her] re-adopted’, and that she would be deemed ‘a biological child’.
The agreement also stated that Emily had the right to inherit the estate of her adopted parents, who had established a pair of trusts for their children, as well as one meant solely for Emily, according to ABC.
In December 2004, seven years after her husband died from cancer, Mrs Svenningsen put Emily up for adoption and surrendered her to Spence-Chapin Services to Families and Children, an adoption agency in New York.
She said that Emily was a difficult child and was unable to bond with the family. But the adoptive family suggest that Christine may have wanted to terminate Emily’s interest in her husband’s estate.
On May 18, 2006, Maryann Campbell and her husband Fred Cass formally adopted Emily after first expressing interest when Mrs Svenningsen brought Emily to their boarding school catered for children with special needs.
Christine placed Emily at the Devereux Glenholme School based upon a diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder, though the staff at Devereux did not concur with that diagnosis, according to court documents, which also noted that Emily thrived with her new family
The couple had no idea about the money legally owed to their newly adopted daughter from the trust, but eventually learned that John Svenningsen had arranged to provide for Emily’s educational and medical needs.
They were sent a letter by Christine’s lawyers stating that Emily’s trusts totaled $842,397.
When they later learned the estate was worth more than $250million, the couple sued on behalf of the Chinese girl.
Westchester County Surrogate’s Court said that John Svenningsen meant to provide for all of his children, both biological and adopted.
Mrs Svenningsen and her five biological children appealed, but last week the court ruled in Emily’s favor.
‘It cannot be overly emphasized that Christine’s unilateral surrender of Emily for adoption more than eight years after the decedent and Christine adopted her was not foreseeable at the time the will, and the trust documents were drafted and executed by the decedent,’ Judge Leonard Austin wrote.
‘John Svenningsen expressed an intention to include his adopted child in the absence of any reason to believe that his status as the parent of Emily would be terminated by her subsequent adoption many years after his death.’
Christine Svenningsen, who has since remarried and has spent about $33 million buying ten of the so-called Thimble Islands in the Long Island Sound, could not be reached for comment.
She married John G Chiarella, Jr, a landscaping entrepreneur who manages her islands, in July 2010.”
Multimillionaire widow ordered to give portion of $250m estate to adopted Chinese daughter she gave up after ten years
[Daily Mail 2/15/13]
Update: Christine Svenningsen adopted a boy from China after her husband died. She proceeded to immediately disrupt him.
“Christine Svenningsen had adopted a boy she called Eric from China shortly after her husband’s death in 1997.
But court papers show that after his arrival to suburban Westchester County in New York, Eric was given up for adoption, and was taken in by a family living in New Jersey because the mother-of-six said that another baby was more than she could handle.”
“After being asked what she did with baby Eric, Svenningsen deposed: ‘He was adopted by a person in New Jersey,’ though the court papers do not reveal the date of either Svenningsen’s adoption nor the New Jersey family’s re-adoption.
She said: ‘I couldn’t handle seven children,’ according to court papers.”
Widow who cut adopted Chinese daughter out of husband’s $250M will ‘had given up ANOTHER child from China years earlier’
[Daily Mail 3/3/13]
Update 2: Followup to Emily Svenningsen’ s plight is shared at the Lurching into Decrepitude blog by author and adoptive parent Karen Moline. See it at the post The Monster of Thimble Island. Emily has overcome a lot and seems to be thriving. Good for her!
Update 3:“A greedy ice queen who gave up the daughter she adopted from China, then tried to cut the young girl out of her deceased husband’s $250 million estate, now claims she’s been scammed out of millions of dollars.
Christine Svenningsen says a groundskeeping company owned by the man she later married and his brother overcharged her by at least $3 million for work at her numerous mansions and exclusive islands — and is trying to shake her down for millions more.
In papers filed in federal court in White Plains, Svenningsen, 56, said she learned about the years of “fraud” in March, after her divorce from John Chiarella, 61, was finalized.
Svenningsen said she’d paid their company over $5 million a year to manage her properties — including a 27-room mansion and nine islands off the coast of Connecticut, one for each of her biological children — and maintain her fleet of luxury boats and cars, only to find the brothers apparently did little or anything to earn the cash.
“For at least the years 2006 through 2009, Ultimate Services engaged in a scheme of fraud and theft against” Svenningsen, the suit says, including “charging for work that was not performed” and “grossly inflating labor hours” to the tune of $3 million. And “that figure is most likely much higher,” the filing adds.
Svenningsen inherited her mega-millions in 1997, after the death of her party goods magnate husband John Svenningsen, who was 27 years her elder. They had five biological children together, and adopted an infant from China a year before his death whom they named Emily.
Court documents in a separate lawsuit over the inheritance say Svenningsen treated the special needs girl as a second-class citizen, making her sit apart from the family at meals and harshly disciplining her — even forcing her to sleep outside — before giving her up for re-adoption in 2004 when she was 8.
After Emily was adopted by a married couple, Svenningsen moved to cut the youngster out of her husband’s $250 million estate, arguing since she’d been re-adopted, she shouldn’t collect the 1/6 share of his fortune she’d eventually be entitled to as one of his heirs. A state appeals court denied the bid last year.
The Daily News reported Svenningsen adopted another Chinese child after her husband’s death, named Eric, whom she also gave up for re-adoption. “I couldn’t handle seven children,” she said in court filings. After also giving up Emily, Svenningsen was down to five kids.
She tied the knot with Chiarella on one of her nine Thimble Islands in 2010.”
“That year, she signed a $5.7 million annual contract for the company to maintain her properties and vehicles — and the overcharging continued, the suit says.
The workers “failed to landscape correctly; register vehicles; failed to service vehicles, boats and equipment,” and failed to winterize properly, causing substantial damage to her properties, the suit says. She tried to can Ultimate Services last year after she filed for divorce, but was told she couldn’t because the year-to-year contract was automatically self-renewing, the suit says.
Now the Chiarellas are trying to shake her down for more cash by holding some of her boats, cars and plants hostage unless she forks over another $800,000, the suit says.
Among the property the company’s refusing to return is four of her Boston Whalers, two of her pedal boats, a steel barge and eight cars, including a Saturn Vue, a Land Rover and a Ford Mustang.
They’re also holding onto several of her tractors and cement mixers, according to the suit, which seeks unspecified millions in damages.
The Branford Eagle called the three-day affair on Rogers Island, home of her sprawling 100-year-old Tudor mansion, “Stony Creek’s wedding of the decade.”
But the union didn’t last long — she filed for divorce before their third anniversary, and the split was finalized this past January.
Ultimate Services’ lawyer, Richard Corde, mocked Svenningsen’s claims that she hadn’t known about the self-renewing clause and wasn’t able to get a hold of the company’s books until March.
“She was the company’s chief operating officer until 2011,” Corde said.
He called her allegations of being cheated “meritless.” He acknowledged that Chiarella had been holding on to “some” of her vehicles, but only because she’d been refusing to pay for the work he’d had done on them.
“She owes him money,” he said, adding that his client is planning on filing a countersuit.
Svenningsen and her lawyer did not return calls for comment.””
EXCLUSIVE: Westchester mom who tried to cut adopted daughter out of $250M estate accuses ex’s groundskeeping company of $3M ripoff
[New York Daily News 8/4/14 by Dareh Gregorian]
I’m so glad Emily is getting the inheritance she is entitled to, and find the first adoptive mother (and the biological kids who joined in the suit) despicable.
What goes around comes around. Sometimes the right person gets bitten in the butt.