A boy and his $400 million - Yahoo! News -
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Published on: 9/14/2005
Last Visited: 9/14/2005
But Alexander Reynolds Hughes is now at the center of a lengthy and contentious probate battle in Los Angeles County Superior Court pitting his mother, Suzan Hughes, a former actress, court reporter and Miss Petite U.S.A., against trustees of the Hughes Family Trust.
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Mark and Suzan Hughes divorced two years before his death, in 1998, after nearly a decade of marriage.
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Suzan Hughes wants the court to oust the trustees, who include Alex's paternal grandfather.She previously tried - and failed - to persuade the courts to remove the trustees on grounds of violating their fiduciary duties.Now, she has filed another petition seeking their removal on other grounds.
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But attorneys for the trust have fired back in court papers, accusing Suzan Hughes of waging a "personal vendetta" against the administrators of the Hughes trust.They describe the case as "one of the most contentious trust and estate proceedings on record."
And this, they point out, comes even though the trustees have achieved "enormous success in administering the nearly $400-million estate Mark left behind (e.g. - they saved more than $100 million in estate taxes, they structured a sale of Mark's company for a price that was approximately twice the market price immediately before his death, and they successfully opposed nearly $500 million in claims)."
"While Suzan complains loudly over the legal fees incurred by the fiduciaries, the plain facts show her to be the root cause of the expenses," the court papers state."The fiduciaries submit that a review of the history of these matters leads to the conclusion that the administration has not been complicated by any fault of theirs, but instead by Suzan Hughes' desire to gain access to the money Mark left for Alex (and not for her)."
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"Suzan wants ,Alex, to have the life his father intended for him,.
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They loathe Suzan.
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"We shared those conclusions with Suzan and she did not agree."
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"Suzan wanted some of the furniture.
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Suzan had to go and buy it.That was shocking."
The items included "chairs, bar stools, Aubbasson pillows, entry way lamps, fireplace irons, a gilded mirror, candelabra, a console from the Netherlands and a chandelier from France."
But, trustees wondered, were these the kinds of items a boy would want - or his mom?
The most recent bone of contention between the trust and Suzan Hughes involves her requests that the trust pay the rent on a Malibu summer vacation home for Alex.
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This summer, Suzan Hughes filed a lawsuit against trustee Pair alleging sexual harassment.
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Under her divorce settlement, Suzan Hughes receives $10,000 a month in direct child support and the trust pays approximately $100,000 for property taxes and insurance on her home, for Alex's tuition at the Windward School in West L.A., and for his medical expenses and medical insurance.
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Suzan Hughes would not comment for this story on the advice of her attorney.
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