Here is something Buffalo readers are not going to read about every day. A Florida polo club founder has adopted his adult girlfriend so that she could have access to several hundred million dollars in a trust set up for the man's children.

It might seem strange, but from a strictly tactical standpoint, it may be a good idea. The maneuver means that the girlfriend (and, perhaps by extension, the man himself) would have access to the trust, into which the man can put assets and thereby shield them from being used to satisfy a judgment against him in a pending wrongful death suit. Of course, life isn't always just "strictly tactical." After you finish the story and learn about all the details, you may decide you feel this was an underhanded misuse of our body of wills, estates and trust law.

The 48-year-old multi-millionaire is being sued by the parents of a young man who was killed on Feb., 12, 2010 when the 48-year-old ran a stop sign in his Bentley when he was drunk and hit the younger man. The now-deceased college student had been home on a trip home from college for his sister's birthday. The 48-year-old man now faces both criminal and civil charges in connection with the incident.

Since neither of the 48-year-old man's biological children have reached the age of 35, the age at which they could access the trust, his adoption of his 42-year-old girlfriend means there would be at least one "child" who would be eligible to access the money. The court has already ruled that the trust assets cannot be considered the man's money, since they are in a trust now and thus beyond his control. So, as it stands now, the man could put most of his vast fortune into the trust, meaning it could not be reached if the wrongful death suit succeeds, and then have his girlfriend/
"child" access it for him.

Of course, the parents of the deceased college student have cried foul. Do you agree with them? Does this sound to you like a devious scheme and an abuse of the way the trust system is intended to work, or do you think he cleverly exploited a loophole?

Source: ABC News, "Polo Club Found Adopts Girlfriend Amid Civil Suit Over DUI Death," Christina Ng, Feb. 2, 2012