Trust - NOT The Equity Cook Book
Trusts are formed and determined in equity and in due course equity must follow the law. The case of the Lear Family Trust shows how court appointed Trustees and lawyers manipulate the books and trust property while pitting family members beneficiaries against each other for their own self-serving ends. This created discord between beneficiaries is intended to preclude those who have right and interest from questioning the unethical and even fraudulent activities of the Trustees. It also shows how the judiciary can prejudicially favor the Trustees' maladministration and breach of Trust while the beneficiaries are left wanting justice. Trustees of other trusts have also acted in similar manners but these trusts are rarely the creation of someone as prominent as William P. Lear, Sr., the designer and inventor of the car radio, the 8-track tape, the automatic pilot and the Lear Jet to name only a few of his many achievements. Bill Lear obtained over 150 patents during his lifetime. The funds received from these enterprises were many times invested in other businesses and property. The Lear Family Trust may very well be the largest Trust in Nevada and among the largest in the USA. The documents that follow show a sordid scam and highlight the violations of the Last Will and Testament of William Lear, Sr., the systematic erosion and violation of his Trust instrument, and the violations of the laws and constitutions of both the State and of the United States of America. These violations are all aggravated by what are shown to be gross unethical behavior of court appointed fiduciaries that degenerates into moral turpitude. This sordid tale of dishonesty and influence is not over and litigation is still pending. The story extends far beyond one branch of the Nevada State government and its regulatory agencies. It is intertwined with federal agencies, international corporations, and dealings that defy the best of Hollywood’s imagination and involves a fortune of which few knew the true extent.
From the date of William Powell Lear, Senior's, (WPLSr) decease on May 14, 1978 to August 1983, notice of legal proceedings and other information regarding the management and accounting of the Estate of WPLSr and of the Lear Family Trust were sent to all of the living beneficiaries and heirs of WPLSr. In January 1983, the Second Judicial District Court in Reno, Nevada, appointed three new Trustees for the Lear Family Trust (LFT). On September 1, 1983, the three new LFT Trustees hired a different law firm to represent and advise them: Cooke, Roberts & Reese, Ltd. of Reno, Nevada. From that moment on, those grandchildren of WPLSr who are the LFT’s remaindermen beneficiaries that had a vested interest in the corpus property of the wealthy estate were cut off from any information, notice of legal proceedings or accountings.
Over the years, some of WPLSr’s grandchildren who lived overseas asked the Trustees for the annual accountings of the Trust as well as other information regarding the Trust’s administration. If the Trustees responded at all, they generally asserted that most of the information sought was a matter of public record and that the grandchild should consult the Court records thousands of miles away in Reno. Other beneficiaries of the same generation also tried in vain to obtain information from the Trustees and were told to ask for Trust information from their parents, who are also Trust beneficiaries. That information was consistently denied. The PSA also shows that the Trustees had bribed, corruptly influenced, and compromised the children of WPLSr at the expense of the grandchildren of WPLSr to ensure that the Trustees would have no opposition to their schemes to secretly sell, convey, and distribute the valuable Trust assets to themselves and/or to their friends and associates. Court records bear out that for a period exceeding two decades, the Court did not enforce either When the grand-children sued, the very first thing they asked from the Court was to determine the rights and interests of the grandchildren by filing a Motion for Declaratory Relief. To date and despite several futile requests, the Court has refused to entertain the Motion for Declaratory Relief. Had the Court timely determined the rights and relationships of the parties under the Trust, many matters would have been cleared up at the outset. This timely decision, however, did not occur, and only after several of the grandchildren began discovering the improprieties in the management and accounting of the Trust and began to present them in the court records did the Judge remove one of the troublesome grandchildren from the Trust and his inheritance. In summary the documents that follow allege in part:
Meanwhile, the Trustees, the accountant and the Trust attorney having misaccounted for the assets of the Trust for decades, engaged in intimidation tactics, delay, escalating the cost of litigation and other tactics of dishonnest Trustees to prevent the grandchildren from obtaining a true, correct, complete, and accurate accounting and forensic audit of the Lear Family Trust.
In an April 14, 2006 hearing, the Judge finally decided that the grandchildren were vested (see April 21, 2006 Order), however, on April 20, 2006, while knowing of the vested status of the grandchildren the Judge precluded at least two of the grandchildren from making any claims upon the estate of one of the deceased trustees thereby giving that Trustee complete immunity for his nonfeasance, misfeasance and malfeasance. The standard tactics and conduct of dishonest Trustees, attorneys and judges do not vary. In Reno, Nevada, that is publicly known for and brags about corruption in public offices and in the courts, these tactics and conduct take on a whole new dimension. (See also Los Angeles Times series about corruption in Nevada Courts) This case is still in litigation and this site is regularly updated — visit us again soon. Documents:
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The Petition to Set Aside Accountings (PSA - see link below) states that from the end of August 1983 until March 2004, a period exceeding twenty years, the Trustees and their attorney managed the Trust without regard to WPLSr's Last Will and Testament or to the terms and conditions of the Trust instrument itself, thereby violating both WPLSr’s Last Will and the LFT. On numerous erratic occasions, the Trustees petitioned the Second Judicial District Court in Reno, Nevada to secretly change the terms and conditions of the Trust. The court continuously condoned those changes without informing WPLSr’s grandchildren against whose interest and at whose expense those secret changes were made. Not knowing their rights and interests were effectively being abolished and sold to the lowest bidder and that some of the Trustees purchased Trust property at pennies on the dollar, the grandchildren did not know and could not object to the proposed actions in any of the secret legal proceedings brought by the Court appointed Trustees and the Court appointed Trustees’ attorneys. 
the Last Will or the terms and conditions of the founding Lear Family Trust instrument. One of the Trustees was also the accountant that kept all the books and records of the Trust in his vault where few would ever be allowed to venture. When the remaindermen found out that highly valuable Trust property had disappeared without a trace or was being dwindled like water through the desert sands, the grandchildren sued.