A 93-year-old heiress does not need a guardian to take care of her, but a hearing would be held to determine whether she needs a conservator to oversee her US$215 million trust, a judge ruled on Friday in an ongoing battle over her wealth.
Abigail Kawananakoa’s fortune has been tied up in a court case since her 2017 stroke. Her long-time lawyer, Jim Wright, argued the stroke left her impaired, and he stepped in to assume the role of trustee.
Kawananakoa said she is fine, fired Wright and married her partner of 20 years, Veronica Gail Worth.
Kawananakoa inherited her wealth as the great-granddaughter of James Campbell, an Irish businessman who made his fortune as a sugar plantation owner and one of Hawaii’s largest landowners.
Native Hawaiians consider her a princess, because she is a descendant of the family that ruled the islands before the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893.
They have been closely watching the legal wrangling over her trust, because they are concerned about the fate of a foundation she set up to benefit Hawaiian causes.
Last year, Judge Mark Browning ruled Kawananakoa lacks the mental capacity to manage her trust, appointed First Hawaiian Bank to serve as trustee and removed Wright.
Wright had appointed three prominent Native Hawaiian leaders to serve as board members for the US$100 million foundation Kawananakoa created in 2001. The foundation is participating in the court battle because it is a beneficiary of her trust.
Board members of her foundation and ex-employees said her wife is manipulating Kawananakoa.
Lawyers for the couple dispute that.
Petitions for a guardian and a conservator come “from a place of sincere respect and reverence, honoring Ms Kawananakoa’s lifelong commitment to the Native Hawaiian people,” foundation attorney David Kauila Kopper said.
Kawananakoa last year attempted to change her trust to ensure her wife receives US$40 million and all her personal property, according to court records.
The couple’s lawyers on Friday said that Kawananakoa is well-cared for and should be able to do what she wants with her money.
The allegations that she cannot take care of herself or her affairs, is “speculation of the worst kind,” said her attorney, Bruce Voss.
“Just because Ms Kawananakoa has a great deal of assets and just because there’s a lot of people who think they could do a better job of spending her money than she does, does not mean that Ms Kawananakoa has lost the basic right to decide what she wants to do with her money and property,” Voss said.
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