March 22, 2024 • 24 mins
In Arizona, the 'Gilbert Goons' have grabbed headlines - sending fear and concern throughout a traditional suburban community - a case where teens are charged with violently attacking others.
When things like this occur, one of the overlooked aspects of the legal system is this: THE LIABILITY OF THE PARENTS.
The assets of the parents of the alleged assailants are often highly at risk. Is That Even Legal?
Meet Asset Protection guru Ike Devji. His clients have seven billion dollars under his guiding hand. In his interview with the incredible Bob Sewell, Here are some highlights:
From the moment you become a parent, your risk profile changes, and it is never too soon to consider asset protection.
Often, the children of affluent parents have access to choices and property that can elevate risk for their parents.
Parent's should always we aware of their insurance coverages, their business interests and risks and explore legal advice on how to protect their assets.
Your child may never cause an accident, join a group of "goons," or otherwise incur large financial risk for your household, but those who are prepared, preserve their wealth, says Ike.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bob Sewell (00:04):
Is that even legal?
It's a question we askourselves on a daily basis.
We ask it about our neighbors,we ask it about our elected
officials, we ask it about ourfamily and sometimes we ask it
to ourselves.
The law is complex and itimpacts everyone all the time,
and that's where we are here.
I'm attorney Bob Sewell, andthis is season five of the
(00:26):
Worldwide Podcast that exploresthat one burning question.
Is that even legal?
Let's go.
We're welcoming back today IkeDevji.
Ike is a preeminent assetprotection attorney.
He's known all throughout theUnited States for what he does,
which is asset protection.
(00:46):
He helps his clients managewell over a billion dollars
worth of assets.
Ike, welcome to the show, thankyou Good to be with you, so I
wanted to have you on, becausethere's a story in my hometown,
gilbert, arizona.
It's got some nationalattention but it's also been
(01:06):
flaming hot here in the valley.
They call it the Gilbert Goonsand what's interesting is just a
brief history.
Is the Gilbert Goons mostlyaffluent, mostly white, mostly
some sort of religiousaffiliation, and they are, they
(01:27):
were, are were going out andrandomly targeting kids in a
gang style if not a gang beatingthem up and then afterwards
threatening them if they wereexposed and and threatening more
retaliation if they have anysort of repercussions against
(01:51):
them.
It was really ugly and itculminated when some of these
kids decided to go out to aparty in a neighboring town and
they beat a kid up so bad thatthree days or two days later he
died, he succumbed it.
Absolutely tragic results.
(02:14):
And now you know and it appearsthat you know that a lot of
people knew they, they gavethemselves the moniker Gilbert
Goons and and they were activeon social media.
They posted things on socialmedia.
I mean how they weren'tarrested in advance, I don't
know.
But what's amazing to me now isthe repercussions to the
(02:37):
parents.
Now their parents are incurringreal consequences for their
children's action.
Is that even legal?
Ike Devji (02:48):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And look, parental liability isnothing new.
And so let's have thisdiscussion about parental
liability in the context of theGilbert Goons right, and it
could easily be the ScottsdaleStranglers or the Phoenix felons
or anything else.
So there's nothing particularabout Gilbert as a community
that I think is is unique andcreated these kids and their
(03:11):
gang and their problems and theheinous acts they did and the
tragedy of the death of PrestonLord that resulted from that
allegedly.
But every year I put out awarning that's nearly identical
and I put it out just beforespring break, and what we talk
about there is the idea ofparental liability in the
(03:31):
context of the hundred deadliestdays of the year, the time
between Memorial Day and LaborDay, where we see the highest
number of fatalities, injuries,accidents, things like that.
Because kids are out for thesummer, they're on spring break,
they're on summer vacation, andthis is grade school children,
high school children and evencollege-aged children who might
be adult-aged are coming home,they're using their parents'
(03:55):
homes, cars, boats, cabins, atvs, right, and so all of that
activity their partying, theirdriving more, their spending
more time on supervised createsvery significant liability for
their parents.
But parental liability goes waybeyond car accidents, which is
the number one thing that mostpeople, especially the parents
(04:15):
of teenagers, are worried about,and rightly.
They should be right, becauseanybody who has a teenage child
in their home and doesn't have a$2 million umbrella on their
car whether you make a hundredgrand a year or $2 million a
year or something more than thatyou're insane.
I mean, that is the most basicthing that you would do to
protect yourself.
But we have seen parents becomeliable for their actions, of
(04:37):
their children, for manydifferent things.
We've seen it for bullying,cyberbullying, assault, theft,
vandalism, sexual assault,breaking and entering, throwing
parties in a vacant home in agated community in North
Scottsdale and doing six figuresin damage to the home when you
(04:57):
have 200 kids come in and have aparty.
So this liability takes manydifferent forms and this is just
an echo of that.
And what have we seen here inArizona with the Gilbert Goons?
Well, we've seen I saw onereport that said that one of the
parents has lost their businessand had their franchise pulled
because of the negativeassociation with this whole
(05:20):
event and these children.
We've seen I'm aware of atleast two people who have been
laid off, if not terminated, fortheir employment because of
their association with this.
And now my understanding isthat there are at least two
attorneys in town that arefiling multiple lawsuits against
the parents of these childrenfor damages for whatever they
(05:42):
have done, and those claimsobviously will be different
depending on what exactly eachchild is accused of or there's
proof of them doing.
And then at the top of that,add the legal fees yeah, whether
I think it is natural for everyparent to want to protect their
child, even if their child hasdone something bad, and a lot of
(06:04):
these people are going to bedigging deep into their savings
into their retirement funds intotheir home equity.
And spending six figures onlegal fees to try and minimize
the penalty that these childrenare going to face, and in some
cases, these parents are goingto be spending on six figures
and defending themselves againstthe lawsuits that are coming.
Bob Sewell (06:25):
Now, there's no better fee than a legal fee.
Okay, so we don't want todisparage the legal fees.
No, I'm kidding, but it is.
I mean part of me, thevindictive part of me, says,
(06:45):
well, these parents got what'scoming to them.
And then the other part of mesays, well, I don't know, I
wasn't in that house and Ididn't have their life
experience.
But then the other part of mesays I really could be held
liable for what my kid does.
(07:06):
I mean really.
Ike Devji (07:08):
Yeah, look, I look there's.
I absolutely understand whatyou're saying on both sides of
that, right.
On the one hand, we want tomake sure that this never
happens again.
Right, that there are a groupof teenage, you know, young
adult, mostly males, that go outand terrorize a community and
beat up other children and killa child and do property crimes.
(07:28):
That obviously not acceptable.
And the parents involved there'stheir layers, right.
Their degrees of some of themhad no idea their children were
doing this.
Some of them maybe had a littlebit of an idea and thought it
was harmless.
Some of them were fully awareof it and ignored it.
(07:49):
Some of them are aggressivelydefending the actions of these
kids that are indefensible,right, right, so we range from
clueless to complicit.
Yeah, and are all of thosepeople equally liable?
Should they be equally liable?
I don't know, that's thedecision for the courts to make,
but my job as an assetprotection attorney is to look
(08:10):
at anybody who comes into myoffice and say, oh, you've got
14-aged kids in your house.
Are they?
Do you have proper insurance inplace, right?
And to help them manage thatrisk, whether it's an accident
or whether it's something moreintentional like we're talking
about in this context.
Bob Sewell (08:33):
And I yeah, I should have thought of it that way
before I even posed the question.
Because whether or not theyshould be liable doesn't matter.
Whether or not, because if,from your perspective, we all
know what's going to happen Ifattorneys, where there's an
injury, attorneys find a remedy,and the remedy is with the
(08:54):
person who has the money, andhence we need asset protection.
Ike Devji (09:00):
Absolutely, and I have a list of risk factors that
I walk my clients through andit's not a complete list but it
kind of boiled down to hey, hereare 12 or 13 of the most common
things that I see, and one ofthose is do you have children?
That's one of my risk factorlist, and are those children
using your homes, using yourcars?
Do they drive?
We look at all of those detailsas part of this, and one of the
(09:24):
other questions is are you atarget?
Because you are collectible?
There are two kinds of peoplethat lawyers don't sue people
who don't have any money orpeople who have money they can't
reach.
I think we would all prefer tobe in that second category and
(09:46):
if it was my child that wasinjured, I would aggressively
want to punish the people whowere responsible.
Bob Sewell (09:54):
Oh heck yeah.
Ike Devji (09:55):
There's no doubt the moral outrage that these parents
and these communities feel istotally justified.
I also can put myself because Iguess of what I do for a living
in the shoes of the innocentparent who has worked their
whole life to build a business,provide for their children.
Do all the things that we, thatyou and I hear parents say, oh,
(10:16):
I built this business because Iwant my kids to have what I
never had, or I want, you know,I want to make sure my family's
provided for right and shouldthat person lose everything
because of something they didn'tdo and weren't aware of?
And how do we make sure thatthat doesn't happen?
Right, which is what?
Which is what's my job?
And so when I look at thesethings, you know, we've warned
(10:37):
people that sometimes,especially with affluent people
and this, this community, isconsidered-.
Bob Sewell (10:45):
So it has a lot of affluent people.
Ike Devji (10:46):
Considered to be an affluent community.
It's at minimum.
I think it's described as anupper, middle class, upper class
community, whatever that means,and sometimes people are
wearing the emperor's newclothes and they assume that
because we live in a certain zipcode or we have a certain
income or we go to a certainchurch or whatever.
(11:07):
The factors are not my kid.
My kid would never do this.
Our children aren't involved inthis.
We don't have these problems.
And as someone who worksprimarily, almost exclusively,
with high net worth individuals,I will tell you that those kids
get in trouble as much, if notmore, than, anybody else's kids,
and in some cases it's simplybecause they have access to
(11:28):
things that allow them to doharm.
Cars, homes, boats, atvs, money, yep right, those things can
all facilitate behavior thatleads to problems.
You know, and we talked to you.
So somebody asked me recently.
I said well, what do you do?
How do you protect yourselffrom being the next Gilbert
(11:50):
Goon's parents?
And I said well, the firstlayer of that protection is
something that Bob and I, or anyother attorney and I, can't
teach you.
That's good parenting, it'smanagement, it's leadership,
it's being involved in yourchildren's life, it's being
aware of what they're doing,it's monitoring their social
media usage, it's setting rulesfor the use of your car, your
(12:11):
home, your boat, your cabin,your property and enforcing
those rules.
Because sometimes, when aparent will come to me and say
we had this liability or that,and I'll say, well, what have
you do?
Or how did you punish thatchild?
Or what have you done to limittheir ability to do this again?
And the thing I sometimes hearis he just won't listen.
Yeah, yeah, right now, there isnothing I can do about that as
(12:36):
an attorney.
So the first layer of protectionis always the family, the
parents being involved, keepingan eye on things and forcing
rules.
The next layer of protectionthat we want every parent to
have in place is a very highlimit of insurance.
Have that umbrella policy onyour home and your cars.
Have the best umbrella policyavailable.
(12:57):
That is not the cheapest onethat you went online and found,
but the one that covers the mostthings, including perhaps some
of the actions of your children,things like bullying,
cyberbullying, some of theseother things.
There are umbrella policiesthat can cover some of those.
And then, finally, let's haveour assets organized from an
estate plan to an assetprotection plan in a way that
(13:19):
makes those assets legallydistinct from any personal or
professional liability that weincur in the future.
Let's make sure that we're in aposition where we have locked in
every level of success and wehave made that success, whether
it is in the form of an incomestream for a business or the
(13:39):
ownership of a piece of realestate or money in the bank.
Let's make sure that thosethings are well
compartmentalized and out of thereach of whatever may happen,
this risk or any other.
And that's good basic planningthat we do as asset protection
attorneys.
That is our primaryresponsibility, because we never
(13:59):
know where this risk is comingfrom.
Yeah, it could be an employeelawsuit, it could be an investor
lawsuit, it could be a businessdeal gone bad, it could be a
construction defect claim for abuilder, it could be a medical
malpractice claim for a doctor,or it could be one of your kids
goes out and does somethingstupid that you weren't aware
about and it cost you yoursavings and your retirement.
Bob Sewell (14:20):
Yeah, and the thing that I've learned from you how
long were you known each other?
10 years, it's gotta be Atleast.
Yeah.
And the thing I've learned fromyou is, when it comes to asset
protection, you don't just getthese things out of the cracker
jack, the cracker jack crackerjack's box.
You don't just order it up onthe internet.
(14:42):
It involves carefully looking atyour assets, at your potential
risk, with your attorney, thenorganizing these things in a
very particular way for you andyou alone, right.
And then layering it withinsurance and whatever you else
you think you need to do, andthen comparing, you know, your
(15:05):
risk to your level of how much.
You know how you say, okay, Ifeel this level of risk is it
was okay for me, or I'm okaylosing this and or spending this
in taxes, or losing control ofthis or not losing control of
that, all those factors is sortof like a I envision if I, if I
(15:26):
wasn't you know the type of guythat had to really strategize
about this that it would be I'dcome to you as my, my true
counselor, my mental healththerapist for my assets, right,
and that's what you do, right.
Ike Devji (15:42):
Yeah, I mean all of those factors that you mentioned
are part of the calculation,and what is the right tool or
how much is enough, or what'sgood enough for this person,
right?
So somebody who is retired andhas a significant amount of
wealth should have some assetprotection planning in place,
because they're not refillingthat bank account anymore the
(16:03):
same way that they used to,right?
But their risk level iscertainly much lower than my
entrepreneur client who'sactively running for businesses,
right?
Right?
So those two people might haveidentical net worths, but they
need different planning.
They also have different needsin terms of access.
So one of the most effectiveforms of asset protection that
(16:23):
we could ever conceive of is oneof the simplest, which is let's
say, I have $5 million and Iput that $5 million in an
irrevocable trust for Bob.
It is forever out of my reachand control.
A third party trustee controlsthat trust and if I get sued for
anything going forward, thatmoney that we put into that
(16:44):
trust for Bob before this badthing happened is unreachable.
That works, yeah, that works.
The problem is I no longer havemy $5 million that maybe I
needed, wanted, needed to use it, that capital to generate more
income, maybe needed to reinvestit.
Maybe I'm not financially at thepoint where I can make those
(17:05):
kind of large gifts and cut thatout of my use and control
forever right and even mywealthiest clients, often
mentally even though financiallythey can do it mentally aren't
there yet they're not ready togive up control and just say
that wait a minute.
I spent 20 years earning andleveraging up to buy this office
(17:26):
building that I'm putting intothis trust for my kids and I can
never touch it or use it or geta dollar out of it again or
control anything that happens toit, and I have to put that in
the hands of a third partytrustee.
Some people are ready for that.
Some people are not right.
Some people need a greaterdegree of control.
Some people need to be able tohave investment funds that they
(17:47):
they get a call on a Mondayabout an opportunity on a
Tuesday and they need to be ableto write a check the same day.
So all of these factors, all ofthese unique things, are part
of the calculation that goesinto what's the rights tool set
for this person Right?
Right, Because there are manyways to achieve the same result.
From the lawyer's desk, they'reall kind of the same, but from
(18:11):
the other side of the table,with the client, the person
whose money it is, it's very,very different, and is it?
Bob Sewell (18:17):
and then the other part of the counseling is oh,
you're a parent and do you haveboats, do you have ATVs, do you
have side by sides and do youlet your kids do these things by
themselves?
And well, you're living a morerisky lifestyle, you know.
Ike Devji (18:37):
Absolutely.
In fact, I have a questionnairethat I use to help figure out
what a person's risk factor iswhen I'm working with them as a
client, what their risk factorsare.
One of them is children.
And then, exactly as you said,how many vehicles are in your
home?
Who holds title to thosevehicles?
Is it you and your spouse, ordoes one of the kids drive a car
(18:59):
that's leased by your medicalpractice because you're getting
a tax write off?
Bob Sewell (19:04):
Yeah.
Ike Devji (19:05):
Right.
So you're taking the mostdangerous thing that you do
every day, which is pilot yourfour or five thousand pound
missile between everybody else'son the one on one, and you're
linking it to the thing thatprovides your family's income
and is the most valuable thingyou own, right?
So we do ask those questionsand we ask what toys do you have
?
Boats, planes, rvs, etc.
(19:25):
Etc.
We ask about do you havevacation homes?
We ask about how much insuranceyou have in place and, like I
said, two million is thestarting point, even for regular
, everyday working folks, in myopinion, right now, because,
look, if you kill or injuresomebody in a car accident, a
million dollars isn't going tocover it anymore.
Bob Sewell (19:45):
If they have a permanent injury or a death, and
just the property damage alone.
Ike Devji (19:49):
I mean, every new car on the road these days is
ridiculously expensive.
Yeah Right, you can go get anew soccer mom Mabel, a new
Tahoe, and that's close to sixfigures.
Yeah Right, so that milliondollars was a big number in the
1970s, yeah, and it's a muchsmaller number in 2024.
(20:11):
Yeah, and so we look at allthose factors, you know, and, as
I said, this is a tragic casethat has many different factors,
and some of these parents werefully aware of it, I'm sure, and
some of them were completelyunaware that their children not
only was their child doingsomething, but was even capable
of doing something like that.
(20:32):
Yeah, and that's the problemthat we have with parental
liability, and in Arizona wehave statutes that say a couple
of interesting things.
Number one it says that parentsare liable for the actions of
their children if you havecustody of your child.
And the second thing it says isnothing in this statute shall
(20:53):
require an insurer or shallprevent an insurer from
excluding intentional acts oftheir children.
So you might have thatinsurance in place and if your
child intentionally assaulted,somebody drove a car into them,
participated in street racingand the street takeovers that we
(21:14):
see on the news and you seethem on Tik Tok, where the kids
pull into an intersection.
All of a sudden there's 300people standing there and
they're doing donuts andsomebody gets run over
invariably.
Yeah, they can.
Your insurance coverage couldpotentially exclude something
like that, which puts that billright on you and your house and
your savings and everything elsethat you've ever worked for.
(21:34):
So these are issues that, likeI said, can be wide ranging and
in most cases it is an accident.
It is not very common that I,at least, have had to deal with
intentional acts.
Like I said, we've had thosebullying acts, those bullying
claims and cyber bullying andfights and assaults and theft
(21:55):
and vandalism, all of thosethings, but the biggest and most
regularly recurring exposuresare accident based.
Bob Sewell (22:10):
Yeah, If I'm a parent, I'm looking, hearing
this conversation and I say youknow, I need to do some massive
protection.
I have a business, I have moremultiple businesses.
How am I going to get ahold ofyou?
Ike Devji (22:26):
The best way to find me is probably just through my
website, which iswwwproassetprotectioncom.
P-r-o.
Asset protection we have.
You'll be able to find all mycontact information there.
You'll also be able to find abunch of easily accessible
information on all of thesetopics I've written.
(22:47):
I've been doing asset protectionplanning for 20 years as you
said I protect, help protectwell over $7 billion in assets
for clients all over the country.
So what I've tried to do isgive those I work with perfect
2020 hindsight, where I've everytime something bad happens that
we, that is a risk that we canmanage or risk to be aware of, I
(23:10):
write about it.
I say, hey, this thing happensand it happens repeatedly, and
so all of that information isthere as well at
proassetprotectioncom.
Bob Sewell (23:19):
Our best to the families of the who were victims
of the Gilbert Goons and uh Ike.
Thanks for coming on the show,but if you need some legal
(23:56):
advice, get some.
There's some great lawyers outthere and we are always ready to
help.
See you next time.
Is that even legal?
It's a question we askourselves on a daily basis.
We ask it about our neighbors,we ask it about our elected
officials, we ask it about ourfamily and sometimes we ask it
to ourselves.
The law is complex and itimpacts everyone all the time,
and that's where we are here.
I'm attorney Bob Sewell, andthis is season five of the
(00:26):
Worldwide Podcast that exploresthat one burning question.
Is that even legal?
Let's go.
We're welcoming back today IkeDevji.
Ike is a preeminent assetprotection attorney.
He's known all throughout theUnited States for what he does,
which is asset protection.
(00:46):
He helps his clients managewell over a billion dollars
worth of assets.
Ike, welcome to the show, thankyou Good to be with you, so I
wanted to have you on, becausethere's a story in my hometown,
gilbert, arizona.
It's got some nationalattention but it's also been
(01:06):
flaming hot here in the valley.
They call it the Gilbert Goonsand what's interesting is just a
brief history.
Is the Gilbert Goons mostlyaffluent, mostly white, mostly
some sort of religiousaffiliation, and they are, they
(01:27):
were, are were going out andrandomly targeting kids in a
gang style if not a gang beatingthem up and then afterwards
threatening them if they wereexposed and and threatening more
retaliation if they have anysort of repercussions against
(01:51):
them.
It was really ugly and itculminated when some of these
kids decided to go out to aparty in a neighboring town and
they beat a kid up so bad thatthree days or two days later he
died, he succumbed it.
Absolutely tragic results.
(02:14):
And now you know and it appearsthat you know that a lot of
people knew they, they gavethemselves the moniker Gilbert
Goons and and they were activeon social media.
They posted things on socialmedia.
I mean how they weren'tarrested in advance, I don't
know.
But what's amazing to me now isthe repercussions to the
(02:37):
parents.
Now their parents are incurringreal consequences for their
children's action.
Is that even legal?
Ike Devji (02:48):
Absolutely, absolutely.
And look, parental liability isnothing new.
And so let's have thisdiscussion about parental
liability in the context of theGilbert Goons right, and it
could easily be the ScottsdaleStranglers or the Phoenix felons
or anything else.
So there's nothing particularabout Gilbert as a community
that I think is is unique andcreated these kids and their
(03:11):
gang and their problems and theheinous acts they did and the
tragedy of the death of PrestonLord that resulted from that
allegedly.
But every year I put out awarning that's nearly identical
and I put it out just beforespring break, and what we talk
about there is the idea ofparental liability in the
(03:31):
context of the hundred deadliestdays of the year, the time
between Memorial Day and LaborDay, where we see the highest
number of fatalities, injuries,accidents, things like that.
Because kids are out for thesummer, they're on spring break,
they're on summer vacation, andthis is grade school children,
high school children and evencollege-aged children who might
be adult-aged are coming home,they're using their parents'
(03:55):
homes, cars, boats, cabins, atvs, right, and so all of that
activity their partying, theirdriving more, their spending
more time on supervised createsvery significant liability for
their parents.
But parental liability goes waybeyond car accidents, which is
the number one thing that mostpeople, especially the parents
(04:15):
of teenagers, are worried about,and rightly.
They should be right, becauseanybody who has a teenage child
in their home and doesn't have a$2 million umbrella on their
car whether you make a hundredgrand a year or $2 million a
year or something more than thatyou're insane.
I mean, that is the most basicthing that you would do to
protect yourself.
But we have seen parents becomeliable for their actions, of
(04:37):
their children, for manydifferent things.
We've seen it for bullying,cyberbullying, assault, theft,
vandalism, sexual assault,breaking and entering, throwing
parties in a vacant home in agated community in North
Scottsdale and doing six figuresin damage to the home when you
(04:57):
have 200 kids come in and have aparty.
So this liability takes manydifferent forms and this is just
an echo of that.
And what have we seen here inArizona with the Gilbert Goons?
Well, we've seen I saw onereport that said that one of the
parents has lost their businessand had their franchise pulled
because of the negativeassociation with this whole
(05:20):
event and these children.
We've seen I'm aware of atleast two people who have been
laid off, if not terminated, fortheir employment because of
their association with this.
And now my understanding isthat there are at least two
attorneys in town that arefiling multiple lawsuits against
the parents of these childrenfor damages for whatever they
(05:42):
have done, and those claimsobviously will be different
depending on what exactly eachchild is accused of or there's
proof of them doing.
And then at the top of that,add the legal fees yeah, whether
I think it is natural for everyparent to want to protect their
child, even if their child hasdone something bad, and a lot of
(06:04):
these people are going to bedigging deep into their savings
into their retirement funds intotheir home equity.
And spending six figures onlegal fees to try and minimize
the penalty that these childrenare going to face, and in some
cases, these parents are goingto be spending on six figures
and defending themselves againstthe lawsuits that are coming.
Bob Sewell (06:25):
Now, there's no better fee than a legal fee.
Okay, so we don't want todisparage the legal fees.
No, I'm kidding, but it is.
I mean part of me, thevindictive part of me, says,
(06:45):
well, these parents got what'scoming to them.
And then the other part of mesays, well, I don't know, I
wasn't in that house and Ididn't have their life
experience.
But then the other part of mesays I really could be held
liable for what my kid does.
(07:06):
I mean really.
Ike Devji (07:08):
Yeah, look, I look there's.
I absolutely understand whatyou're saying on both sides of
that, right.
On the one hand, we want tomake sure that this never
happens again.
Right, that there are a groupof teenage, you know, young
adult, mostly males, that go outand terrorize a community and
beat up other children and killa child and do property crimes.
(07:28):
That obviously not acceptable.
And the parents involved there'stheir layers, right.
Their degrees of some of themhad no idea their children were
doing this.
Some of them maybe had a littlebit of an idea and thought it
was harmless.
Some of them were fully awareof it and ignored it.
(07:49):
Some of them are aggressivelydefending the actions of these
kids that are indefensible,right, right, so we range from
clueless to complicit.
Yeah, and are all of thosepeople equally liable?
Should they be equally liable?
I don't know, that's thedecision for the courts to make,
but my job as an assetprotection attorney is to look
(08:10):
at anybody who comes into myoffice and say, oh, you've got
14-aged kids in your house.
Are they?
Do you have proper insurance inplace, right?
And to help them manage thatrisk, whether it's an accident
or whether it's something moreintentional like we're talking
about in this context.
Bob Sewell (08:33):
And I yeah, I should have thought of it that way
before I even posed the question.
Because whether or not theyshould be liable doesn't matter.
Whether or not, because if,from your perspective, we all
know what's going to happen Ifattorneys, where there's an
injury, attorneys find a remedy,and the remedy is with the
(08:54):
person who has the money, andhence we need asset protection.
Ike Devji (09:00):
Absolutely, and I have a list of risk factors that
I walk my clients through andit's not a complete list but it
kind of boiled down to hey, hereare 12 or 13 of the most common
things that I see, and one ofthose is do you have children?
That's one of my risk factorlist, and are those children
using your homes, using yourcars?
Do they drive?
We look at all of those detailsas part of this, and one of the
(09:24):
other questions is are you atarget?
Because you are collectible?
There are two kinds of peoplethat lawyers don't sue people
who don't have any money orpeople who have money they can't
reach.
I think we would all prefer tobe in that second category and
(09:46):
if it was my child that wasinjured, I would aggressively
want to punish the people whowere responsible.
Bob Sewell (09:54):
Oh heck yeah.
Ike Devji (09:55):
There's no doubt the moral outrage that these parents
and these communities feel istotally justified.
I also can put myself because Iguess of what I do for a living
in the shoes of the innocentparent who has worked their
whole life to build a business,provide for their children.
Do all the things that we, thatyou and I hear parents say, oh,
(10:16):
I built this business because Iwant my kids to have what I
never had, or I want, you know,I want to make sure my family's
provided for right and shouldthat person lose everything
because of something they didn'tdo and weren't aware of?
And how do we make sure thatthat doesn't happen?
Right, which is what?
Which is what's my job?
And so when I look at thesethings, you know, we've warned
(10:37):
people that sometimes,especially with affluent people
and this, this community, isconsidered-.
Bob Sewell (10:45):
So it has a lot of affluent people.
Ike Devji (10:46):
Considered to be an affluent community.
It's at minimum.
I think it's described as anupper, middle class, upper class
community, whatever that means,and sometimes people are
wearing the emperor's newclothes and they assume that
because we live in a certain zipcode or we have a certain
income or we go to a certainchurch or whatever.
(11:07):
The factors are not my kid.
My kid would never do this.
Our children aren't involved inthis.
We don't have these problems.
And as someone who worksprimarily, almost exclusively,
with high net worth individuals,I will tell you that those kids
get in trouble as much, if notmore, than, anybody else's kids,
and in some cases it's simplybecause they have access to
(11:28):
things that allow them to doharm.
Cars, homes, boats, atvs, money, yep right, those things can
all facilitate behavior thatleads to problems.
You know, and we talked to you.
So somebody asked me recently.
I said well, what do you do?
How do you protect yourselffrom being the next Gilbert
(11:50):
Goon's parents?
And I said well, the firstlayer of that protection is
something that Bob and I, or anyother attorney and I, can't
teach you.
That's good parenting, it'smanagement, it's leadership,
it's being involved in yourchildren's life, it's being
aware of what they're doing,it's monitoring their social
media usage, it's setting rulesfor the use of your car, your
(12:11):
home, your boat, your cabin,your property and enforcing
those rules.
Because sometimes, when aparent will come to me and say
we had this liability or that,and I'll say, well, what have
you do?
Or how did you punish thatchild?
Or what have you done to limittheir ability to do this again?
And the thing I sometimes hearis he just won't listen.
Yeah, yeah, right now, there isnothing I can do about that as
(12:36):
an attorney.
So the first layer of protectionis always the family, the
parents being involved, keepingan eye on things and forcing
rules.
The next layer of protectionthat we want every parent to
have in place is a very highlimit of insurance.
Have that umbrella policy onyour home and your cars.
Have the best umbrella policyavailable.
(12:57):
That is not the cheapest onethat you went online and found,
but the one that covers the mostthings, including perhaps some
of the actions of your children,things like bullying,
cyberbullying, some of theseother things.
There are umbrella policiesthat can cover some of those.
And then, finally, let's haveour assets organized from an
estate plan to an assetprotection plan in a way that
(13:19):
makes those assets legallydistinct from any personal or
professional liability that weincur in the future.
Let's make sure that we're in aposition where we have locked in
every level of success and wehave made that success, whether
it is in the form of an incomestream for a business or the
(13:39):
ownership of a piece of realestate or money in the bank.
Let's make sure that thosethings are well
compartmentalized and out of thereach of whatever may happen,
this risk or any other.
And that's good basic planningthat we do as asset protection
attorneys.
That is our primaryresponsibility, because we never
(13:59):
know where this risk is comingfrom.
Yeah, it could be an employeelawsuit, it could be an investor
lawsuit, it could be a businessdeal gone bad, it could be a
construction defect claim for abuilder, it could be a medical
malpractice claim for a doctor,or it could be one of your kids
goes out and does somethingstupid that you weren't aware
about and it cost you yoursavings and your retirement.
Bob Sewell (14:20):
Yeah, and the thing that I've learned from you how
long were you known each other?
10 years, it's gotta be Atleast.
Yeah.
And the thing I've learned fromyou is, when it comes to asset
protection, you don't just getthese things out of the cracker
jack, the cracker jack crackerjack's box.
You don't just order it up onthe internet.
(14:42):
It involves carefully looking atyour assets, at your potential
risk, with your attorney, thenorganizing these things in a
very particular way for you andyou alone, right.
And then layering it withinsurance and whatever you else
you think you need to do, andthen comparing, you know, your
(15:05):
risk to your level of how much.
You know how you say, okay, Ifeel this level of risk is it
was okay for me, or I'm okaylosing this and or spending this
in taxes, or losing control ofthis or not losing control of
that, all those factors is sortof like a I envision if I, if I
(15:26):
wasn't you know the type of guythat had to really strategize
about this that it would be I'dcome to you as my, my true
counselor, my mental healththerapist for my assets, right,
and that's what you do, right.
Ike Devji (15:42):
Yeah, I mean all of those factors that you mentioned
are part of the calculation,and what is the right tool or
how much is enough, or what'sgood enough for this person,
right?
So somebody who is retired andhas a significant amount of
wealth should have some assetprotection planning in place,
because they're not refillingthat bank account anymore the
(16:03):
same way that they used to,right?
But their risk level iscertainly much lower than my
entrepreneur client who'sactively running for businesses,
right?
Right?
So those two people might haveidentical net worths, but they
need different planning.
They also have different needsin terms of access.
So one of the most effectiveforms of asset protection that
(16:23):
we could ever conceive of is oneof the simplest, which is let's
say, I have $5 million and Iput that $5 million in an
irrevocable trust for Bob.
It is forever out of my reachand control.
A third party trustee controlsthat trust and if I get sued for
anything going forward, thatmoney that we put into that
(16:44):
trust for Bob before this badthing happened is unreachable.
That works, yeah, that works.
The problem is I no longer havemy $5 million that maybe I
needed, wanted, needed to use it, that capital to generate more
income, maybe needed to reinvestit.
Maybe I'm not financially at thepoint where I can make those
(17:05):
kind of large gifts and cut thatout of my use and control
forever right and even mywealthiest clients, often
mentally even though financiallythey can do it mentally aren't
there yet they're not ready togive up control and just say
that wait a minute.
I spent 20 years earning andleveraging up to buy this office
(17:26):
building that I'm putting intothis trust for my kids and I can
never touch it or use it or geta dollar out of it again or
control anything that happens toit, and I have to put that in
the hands of a third partytrustee.
Some people are ready for that.
Some people are not right.
Some people need a greaterdegree of control.
Some people need to be able tohave investment funds that they
(17:47):
they get a call on a Mondayabout an opportunity on a
Tuesday and they need to be ableto write a check the same day.
So all of these factors, all ofthese unique things, are part
of the calculation that goesinto what's the rights tool set
for this person Right?
Right, Because there are manyways to achieve the same result.
From the lawyer's desk, they'reall kind of the same, but from
(18:11):
the other side of the table,with the client, the person
whose money it is, it's very,very different, and is it?
Bob Sewell (18:17):
and then the other part of the counseling is oh,
you're a parent and do you haveboats, do you have ATVs, do you
have side by sides and do youlet your kids do these things by
themselves?
And well, you're living a morerisky lifestyle, you know.
Ike Devji (18:37):
Absolutely.
In fact, I have a questionnairethat I use to help figure out
what a person's risk factor iswhen I'm working with them as a
client, what their risk factorsare.
One of them is children.
And then, exactly as you said,how many vehicles are in your
home?
Who holds title to thosevehicles?
Is it you and your spouse, ordoes one of the kids drive a car
(18:59):
that's leased by your medicalpractice because you're getting
a tax write off?
Bob Sewell (19:04):
Yeah.
Ike Devji (19:05):
Right.
So you're taking the mostdangerous thing that you do
every day, which is pilot yourfour or five thousand pound
missile between everybody else'son the one on one, and you're
linking it to the thing thatprovides your family's income
and is the most valuable thingyou own, right?
So we do ask those questionsand we ask what toys do you have
?
Boats, planes, rvs, etc.
(19:25):
Etc.
We ask about do you havevacation homes?
We ask about how much insuranceyou have in place and, like I
said, two million is thestarting point, even for regular
, everyday working folks, in myopinion, right now, because,
look, if you kill or injuresomebody in a car accident, a
million dollars isn't going tocover it anymore.
Bob Sewell (19:45):
If they have a permanent injury or a death, and
just the property damage alone.
Ike Devji (19:49):
I mean, every new car on the road these days is
ridiculously expensive.
Yeah Right, you can go get anew soccer mom Mabel, a new
Tahoe, and that's close to sixfigures.
Yeah Right, so that milliondollars was a big number in the
1970s, yeah, and it's a muchsmaller number in 2024.
(20:11):
Yeah, and so we look at allthose factors, you know, and, as
I said, this is a tragic casethat has many different factors,
and some of these parents werefully aware of it, I'm sure, and
some of them were completelyunaware that their children not
only was their child doingsomething, but was even capable
of doing something like that.
(20:32):
Yeah, and that's the problemthat we have with parental
liability, and in Arizona wehave statutes that say a couple
of interesting things.
Number one it says that parentsare liable for the actions of
their children if you havecustody of your child.
And the second thing it says isnothing in this statute shall
(20:53):
require an insurer or shallprevent an insurer from
excluding intentional acts oftheir children.
So you might have thatinsurance in place and if your
child intentionally assaulted,somebody drove a car into them,
participated in street racingand the street takeovers that we
(21:14):
see on the news and you seethem on Tik Tok, where the kids
pull into an intersection.
All of a sudden there's 300people standing there and
they're doing donuts andsomebody gets run over
invariably.
Yeah, they can.
Your insurance coverage couldpotentially exclude something
like that, which puts that billright on you and your house and
your savings and everything elsethat you've ever worked for.
(21:34):
So these are issues that, likeI said, can be wide ranging and
in most cases it is an accident.
It is not very common that I,at least, have had to deal with
intentional acts.
Like I said, we've had thosebullying acts, those bullying
claims and cyber bullying andfights and assaults and theft
(21:55):
and vandalism, all of thosethings, but the biggest and most
regularly recurring exposuresare accident based.
Bob Sewell (22:10):
Yeah, If I'm a parent, I'm looking, hearing
this conversation and I say youknow, I need to do some massive
protection.
I have a business, I have moremultiple businesses.
How am I going to get ahold ofyou?
Ike Devji (22:26):
The best way to find me is probably just through my
website, which iswwwproassetprotectioncom.
P-r-o.
Asset protection we have.
You'll be able to find all mycontact information there.
You'll also be able to find abunch of easily accessible
information on all of thesetopics I've written.
(22:47):
I've been doing asset protectionplanning for 20 years as you
said I protect, help protectwell over $7 billion in assets
for clients all over the country.
So what I've tried to do isgive those I work with perfect
2020 hindsight, where I've everytime something bad happens that
we, that is a risk that we canmanage or risk to be aware of, I
(23:10):
write about it.
I say, hey, this thing happensand it happens repeatedly, and
so all of that information isthere as well at
proassetprotectioncom.
Bob Sewell (23:19):
Our best to the families of the who were victims
of the Gilbert Goons and uh Ike.
Thanks for coming on the show,but if you need some legal
(23:56):
advice, get some.
There's some great lawyers outthere and we are always ready to
help.
See you next time.
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