The late Gene Hackman only named late wife Betsy Arakawa in his will, which has raised some major questions about his three kids.
“We have no reason to believe that they were disinherited from the trust,” attorney Alison E. Zinn, who specializes in trust and estate litigation, told Us Weekly exclusively. “Not yet anyway.”
Us confirmed last week that Hackman’s will, which hadn’t been updated since June 2005, left his entire estate to late wife and successor trustee Arakawa. Some reports have speculated that because Hackman’s three children — Christopher, 65, Elizabeth, 62, and Leslie, 58 — were not listed as beneficiaries (they are noted as next of kin), they will not inherit any of his fortune. That is not accurate, at least according to Zinn, who does not represent any party in this matter.
“A lot of people, kind of, have this situation wrong. His will leaves his estate to Betsy as trustee of the Gene Hackman trust. So, it doesn’t just leave it to her as an individual. It leaves it to a trust,” Zinn explained to Us. “When you leave something to a trust, it goes into the name of the trustee, and it’s administered in accordance with the terms of the trust. As far as I know, the trust document has not been made public.”
The estate of actor Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, is seeking to keep sensitive images from the investigation into their deaths out of the public eye. Multiple outlets reported that a legal petition was filed at the First Judicial Court in Santa Fe County on Tuesday, March 11, to prevent the Santa Fe […]
Essentially, Hackman’s trust could leave some or all of his $80 million fortune to his three children. (Hackman shared his kids with late ex-wife Faye Maltese.)
“It’s possible that [Arakawa] would’ve been a beneficiary when he died and then when she passed away, his children could be the heirs,” Zinn continued. “But we don’t know that as we sit here. Everything that’s in his estate is going to go to that trust.”
Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa. MediaPunch/INSTARimages
Zinn explained that she doesn’t see “any issues” at the moment with Hackman’s will.
“I don’t know why the kids would want to challenge the will because it doesn’t affect them, other than to leave his entire estate to the trust,” she explained. “The real question is who are the [trust’s] beneficiaries?”
She noted that since they are listed as next of kin, they will be notified of all court proceedings related to Hackman’s estate.
Us confirmed on February 27 that Hackman, 95, and Arakawa, 64, were found dead at their Santa Fe home. Their causes of death have since been revealed with authorities confirming that Arakawa died first from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Hackman died a week later, on February 18, from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with Alzheimer’s disease as a significant contributing factor.
New details about the deaths of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were revealed in a Friday, March 7, press conference. “Mr. Hackman probably died around February 18,” Dr. Heather Jarrell, chief medical examiner for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, explained. “Based on the circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that […]
It was initially reported by New Mexico medical examiner Dr. Heather Jarrell that Arakawa died on February 11, but the date of her death has since been called into question.
“Mrs. Hackman didn’t die on February 11 because she called my clinic on February 12,” Dr. Josiah Child told the Daily Mail in an interview published on Sunday, March 16. “She’d called me a couple of weeks before her death to ask about getting an echocardiogram for her husband.”
Dr. Child, who runs Cloudberry Health in Santa Fe, claimed that Arakawa made an appointment to come in later that day.
“We made her an appointment but she never showed up,” he alleged. “She did not show any symptoms of respiratory distress. The appointment wasn’t for anything related to hantavirus. We tried calling her a couple of times with no reply.”
With reporting by Travis Cronin
