From this morning’s Miami Herald/Gossip extra. Some interesting stories featuring wills and trusts. Enjoy! Read the full story here.
Neil Rogers’ money woes
By Jose Lambiet
gossipink@aol.com
Local radio legend Neil Rogers was running out of money when he died at 58 last Christmas Eve.
The former WQAM-560 AM curmudgeon is believed to have spent almost $3 million in the last 18 months of life, most of it on Christian Hernandez, a 21-year-old boytoy for whom he bought a $700,000 home in Toronto, according to court documents and two friends of Rogers.
“Neil used to love to take care of people,” said David Hine, Rogers’ friend of 25 years. “He used to tell me how he couldn’t say no to Christian. Even if there was no sex involved, he was infatuated with that boy.”
And then, Rogers reportedly hadn’t paid income taxes for several years before his death, and the IRS could become his estate’s biggest beneficiary.
“It’s fair to say that whatever’s left (about $500,000, according to probate records in Broward County) is going to the IRS,” said Fort Lauderdale lawyer Norman Kent, Rogers’ manager, agent and confidante. “Had he known that, the words coming out of Neil’s mouth wouldn’t have been printed in a family newspaper.”
Still, a legal battle over the scraps is brewing between Rogers’ friend in South Florida and Hernandez. Rogers had competing wills written within three weeks in November 2010. One splits assets between Hine, Hernandez and Jonathan Julian, Rogers’ longtime roommate in Plantation.
The other makes Hernandez Rogers’ sole beneficiary.
“Neil once made me change his will in favor of some guy on the same day he met him at the Sawgrass Mills Mall,” Kent said. “He made me change his will all the time.”
Baroness named in suit
Miami Beach socialite Baroness Beatrice Clancy, who married 86-year-old philanthropist Sanford Ziff six months after the death of his wife, allegedly talked an ailing ex-boyfriend into spending millions on her.
At least, that’s what the representatives of the estate of deceased millionaire developer Bernard Schoninger claimed in the seven-year administration of his will, which has recently been settled, according to Miami-Dade County records.
“It was very a upsetting time,” said Jane Schoninger, the developer’s daughter, when asked about Clancy.
Clancy, 68, and Ziff made news last month when he admitted to mulling over changing his dead wife Dolores’ name into Beatrice’s on the Arsht Center’s Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House — angering Dolores’ children.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit in the Schoninger case paints a harsh picture of Clancy.
As Schoninger slowly died of lung cancer in 2003 at 90, Clancy “abused Schoninger’s trust … coerced him into conveying millions of dollars to her … with his credit cards, department-store charge cards and bank accounts,” the suit reads. A source close to the case said Clancy repaid the estate $350,000.
Guy Lewis, Clancy’s attorney, denied the allegations in his legal answer.
Clancy didn’t return calls. Said Ziff: “I don’t know anything about the lawsuit. But I know that my wife is the most generous, caring and giving person I ever met.”
AND FINALLY . . .
. . . Busy time for the administrative assistant of the Gulfstream School, a small private school near Boca Raton. Some of the eighth-grade girls in the school have figured out that the 77-year-old assistant, Joan Posey, is the grandmother of Tyler Posey, star of MTV’s new series, Teen Wolf. “I’ve got so many requests for autographs and photos that I’m trying to find a way to visit the school,” Posey said.