Life Happens Radio, Hosts: Frank Hemming and Tom Marasco

August 2nd, 2025. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
And I think, oh, I can hear myself. All right, Tommy,
can are you here on the line by any chance? Okay?
All right, So welcome everybody to Life Happens Radio. My
name is Frank Hemming. I'm one of the attorneys at Pierre,
O'Connor and Strauss. It's great to be here with you
on this Saturday morning. There actually is sun shining out

(00:23):
my window here at the studio, which is not normally
what happens when I when I seem liked it in
the radio the past few months, and I'm very pleased
to have you here with me. I'm hoping to have
one of our associates, mister Tommy Morasco joined me shortly
on the on the radio here, but I think we're
just trying to deal with some technical issues in the

(00:45):
booths to get him on. So while we're waiting for him,
let me, uh, let me talk to you for a
little bit. So this is Life Happens. It's our weekly
radio program where we address where we address the challenges
we all face as we age. We talk about aging
as a lifestyle. We talk about the issues that must
be can fronted and the careful planning that's required to
avoid crises in the future. Life Happens will provide you

(01:05):
with tools to educate and prepare yourself for events like retirement,
protecting your income and assets, planning to pay for a
nursing home and home care, planning for special needs, preparing wills,
preparing trusts, planning for an untimely death, and then resolving
disputes in and out of court. As the laws and
necessities for planning and care continue to evolve, Life Happens
will help you make smart decisions to ensure that your

(01:27):
goals are reached and your needs are met for you
and your family. So again, thank you for being here
with us. I hope it's not your first time listening,
but if it is, that's a little bit about what
the show is. So again, I'm Frank Hemming. I'm one
of the partners of Pierre, O'Connor and Strauss. We are
a full service elder law firm. Our main office is
located here in the Capital District in Latham, but we

(01:49):
do have a full, full time, full service office as
well in Manhattan, but we also see clients all over
the place. So we do see clients in Hudson Lake,
Placid and then obviously we can go either west or
south or north with special arrangements if that's needed.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
So that's a little bit about who we are.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
And I'm not always the most common host that you have,
so I'm I'm thankful to be here. And what I
like to do when when I host the show is
I like to talk a little bit about stories and
things that we've seen in the in the in the office,
and and kind of like to start the show easy.

(02:30):
So I'm not going to do any client stories right now.
I'm gonna try to wait for Tommy for that if
we can figure out how to get him on, because
I haven't been in the office much recently. I had
a vacation and then I unfortunately had some family things
going on, so i haven't really been in the office much.
So I'm gonna try to think of a client story
or two while we're while we're doing the show, here

(02:51):
just go.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
I'm sorry for the technical differ, for having.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Me, no problem, no problem.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
I'm just glad that they got you on, because for
the listener's sake, I wouldn't want to listen to just
me for the for the whole time.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Oh cut that out. They would be more than more
than happy too.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
So I was just saying that I haven't been in
the office much recently. So while I'd like to start
the show with client stories, I don't really have any
that come to mind, just because I haven't been around
very much. So not to put you on the spot,
but do you have anything quickly that comes to mind
of anything interesting you've seen, And if not, we certainly
can can go kind of to the next thing I
was going to talk about.

Speaker 3 (03:27):
Well I can't. I actually ken briefly there was there
was a second marriage and the old wife was still
in the will and things didn't get updated, and of
course not everything was in trust and couldn't avoid probates.
So now you know we're dealing with that issue. You
can see that's a problem that could be a problem.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
Yeah, yeah, it certainly could have been.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Hopefully it won't be the biggest problem, depending how all
that shakes out with the court and probate and all
that stuff. But especially, really good teaser, if you will,
because we're going to talk about blended families and things
as we kind of get into the substance of the
show in a little bit. While you're talking, I did
actually have a client story come to mind, So I'm

(04:14):
gonna share that real quick, and then we're going to
hit our first break, if that's all right. So we
had a we had a gentleman contact our office, and
he unfortunately was calling us because mom is not doing well.
She's in a facility and does not seem like she's
going to have the ability to return home. And unfortunately,

(04:35):
that's that's a very stressful situation for families, but it's
a common one that we encounter as attorneys. And one
of the things that he was most concerned about, besides
just making sure his mom was okay and cared for,
and you know, obviously the very, very most important things
about Mom specifically, but the other piece that he was
most concerned about was protecting the family house. Because he

(04:59):
is a musician, he travels quite often, and while he
still does some touring and some other things, he essentially
moved into the house with mom I think fifth within
the last fifteen or twenty years, if I'm not mistaken,
and he actually became her full time caregiver while she

(05:21):
was starting to age and have health issues and things.
And he said, you know, one of the reasons that
he did that was because the family house. Was this
the thing that they wanted to protect and just keep
in the family and everything, And that was one of
the reasons why he wanted to keep her in the
house as long as he could. And one of his
biggest concerns was that he tried to seek counsel before

(05:42):
speaking with our office, and he unfortunately wasn't connected with
somebody who was very skilled in Medicaid and long term
care and elder low and all the things we'd like
to do. And he was very concerned that there was
no way to protect the house because the attorney that
he had spoken to said, you know, there wasn't really
way to do that given given the circumstances. And luckily

(06:04):
I was able to speak with him. We talked about
like kind of the history of the family and mom
and and all the things that he'd been doing. And
luckily he qualifies for something called the caregiver child exception,
which we talk about on the show. I don't want
to say a lot, but relatively frequently when we talk
about medicaid planning about how if you if you have
a child live in the house with you when you're

(06:25):
when you're elderly, and they essentially become your caregiver as
long as it's for a period of at least two
years prior to institutionalization, and if they provide essentially a
nursing home level of care to you, then you actually
can transfer your house to that child free of Medicaid penalty.
And it's it's not an exception that I think we

(06:46):
like to use if we have other ones available to us,
because there are other issues with taxes and inheritance, yeah,
and capital gains and things. But certainly it's way, way,
way way better than doing nothing and having the house
that you know, either having to be sold or subject

(07:06):
to a lean or a state recovery or all kind
of the nasty things that come with Medicaid at times.
So so we're so we're working on this case now.
I anticipate that we're going to get a pretty good
result here. I will try to remember to update our
listeners as time goes on and we get closer to
kind of bringing it to a resolution. But it just

(07:27):
goes to show, you know, just seeking counsel doesn't always
mean very much if you don't get tied up and
connected with the right kinds of attorneys. Because the the
advice that he received the first time was clearly not correct,
at least in my opinion, and it just goes to
show it all.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
It all depends on who you talk to.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So so, Tommy, Yeah, yeah, really so far so so, Tommy,
we're gonna we're gonna hit our first break. So now
that we've got you here, stay here with me that,
you know, for the sake of everybody else, will take
the break and then we'll come back. We'll kind of
get into the into the substance of the show a
little bit. So with that coming back after the break
back from break, I am Frank Hemming, one of the

(08:08):
partners from Pierre O'Connor and Strauss.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
Tommy, you're still on the line with me, Yes, I am.

Speaker 3 (08:13):
I'm still here perfect.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Love that and obviously I don't think I thank you
so thanks for being here, Tommy. I really appreciate you
being here on your Saturday.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Thank you for having me. I'm always always happy to
be here.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, it's it's always great that we get to do
this because for those who again, if this is your
first time or maybe this might be your first time
hearing the two of us, I am located in our
Latham office. Tommy primarily practices out of our New York
City office. So while I speak to Tommy, I don't know,
probably several times a week, most often, I don't see

(08:43):
you very much, and usually it's a quick phone call
here there, or a quick email or something, or we
happen to be like kind of a firm meeting or
something like that. So so it's always nice to be
able to kind of do this with you since I
don't get to see all that often in person.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Agreed, very I agree, absolutely, yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
So, so.

Speaker 1 (09:01):
The premise of the show is celebrities and and what
kind of happens with celebrities. And I always like talking
about celebrity deaths when I'm on because I always think
they're they're current. I think people are interested in one
of them. And I like to try to impress upon
our listeners that just because you have a famous person,
that doesn't mean that they don't deal with the same
kind of issues that every day people do, or at

(09:23):
least a lot of the issues that they have are
very probably similar to you or me or people that
you know. And just because they have lots of money
doesn't mean that that you know their stuff is really
going to be much different than maybe what you want
to do for your family. And then unfortunately, because they're famous,
if they if they don't do a good job with stuff,
that tends to make headlines and give us stuff to
talk about. So that's why I like to to kind

(09:47):
of to talk about this kind of thing, like when
we can be that safe to say that it's not
obviously good when people pass away. It's heartbreaking for the families,
so we would I never say. I always try to
make sure that I'm very careful. I don't wish death
upon famous people to give me something to talk about
on the radio. But if you do pass away, you know,
I might be appreciative that at least we have some

(10:08):
good things to speak about.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
So I know there were.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah, So I know there were three of note that
happened recently. One I think is going to be pretty
quick to talk about because I just don't think we
know very much about it. The other two I think
to present some more interesting issues that we can talk about.
So the first one was was Malcolm Jamal Warner, who
I knew as THEO from the Cosme Show, even though

(10:33):
I think I've seen maybe two episodes of that show. Ever,
I was not a cosme show person. And if I'm
remembering correctly, and I could be totally wrong here, I
think when it was most popular and stuff, I was
probably too young to either you know, understand it, appreciate it,
or anything like that. So I think when I really
got exposed to it, it was because it was on reruns,

(10:55):
and it was like either right before or right after
another show that I actually, you know, was planning on watching,
so I might have caught bits and pieces of it,
like while I was either you know, hanging on after
the show I watched had finished, or I was tuning
in a few minutes early to catch whatever I wanted
to do. But but obviously I know who he is
by by by name, and unfortunately, the sad part here

(11:18):
is it just sounds like it's just a really tragic story.
He died while swimming with his daughter, who I believe
is eight years old, and he has a wife and
obviously his daughter, and not much is known about them.
It sounds like he wanted to keep them kind of
not in the limelight. And I mean, I again, I'm
not the most knowledgeable here about him. I don't really
remember him making recent headlines anytime you know, with anything

(11:42):
going on currently or within the past few years. I'm
not saying it's not true, just I'm not aware of it.
So I think just from that, I think he was
probably trying to lead a pretty private life and unfortunately,
just you know, a very tragic thing happened and he
wound up drowning and passing away. But there hasn't really
been much released about the family or his his his state, planning,

(12:06):
his wishes, and given what we kind of don't know
about him, that that doesn't seem super surprising, no, And I.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Think the most more important takeaway there is that none
of us are immune to, you know, obstacles of life
that can come at any given time. And as our
radio show is called, life happened. Obviously this is a
super tragic and unfortunate event, but it just goes to
show it's we can plan all we want, or we

(12:36):
could have plans, but you're not always necessarily going to
go the way that we want. So making sure that
there is a plan that can continue even despite any
unfortunate you know, happenings that could go on, that at
least for our loved ones and the people that we're
going to leave behind or that people are going to
have to manage, you know, in the event of an

(12:57):
accident or death, that making sure or that they're taking
care of in the right way and that there is
a planning place for them.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, I think that's it's perfect. I think your your
thought is perfect. I think your line of thinking is perfect.
I'm going to talk about myself for a second here, because,
as I say, I think pretty frequently on the show,
I'm an only child, so it's all about me anyway.
But my family is a pretty good example of this
and not. Kind of in some ways it's positive and

(13:27):
in other ways it's not. And I kind of use,
you know, myself when I can. But my father passed
at fifty six years old from cancer when there's no
real history of it in the family. By the time
we knew that he had it, it was already really advanced,
and from time to diagnosis till his passing was I
it was around eleven months.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
It wasn't even twelve full months.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
And he's been gone for fifteen years, and it's it's
been it's been a long time, and it seems crazy
in some ways that he's been gone so long. If
you kind of turn that on its head, though there's parents.
My grandparents were very, very very healthy until very recently,
and I just lost my grandfather.

Speaker 2 (14:08):
He just passed.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
I guess it was technically Thursday evening. So that's one
of the reasons I haven't been in the office much,
is because I've had some family stuff going on. But
I but my grandfather lived to be ninety five years old,
and he had a great life, and he was very
very healthy until probably two ish three ish years ago.
And you know, it's one of those things where just

(14:31):
because he lived to be very long, my dad didn't,
his son didn't. And I don't know what life leads
for me, but I've kind of seen both now. I've
seen what a short life can look like, and I've
seen what a very long life can look like. And
you know, again, I don't I don't feel weird saying it,
but like, I have some documents in place to try
to help my family if something happens to me, and

(14:53):
I'm hoping that's a long time from now. But at
the end of the day, Tommy, to your point, none
of us know. You know, I don't think. I don't
think he thought probably when he went into the water
with his daughter that day, that he wasn't going to
come out of the water that day.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
But that's just that's just how it goes.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
So so yeah, so obviously, well we'll keep our eyes
and ears open to see if anything is further released
about just his estate and whether there are issues or not.
I mean, the one that came to mind, Tommy, and
this is pure speculation. The one thing that I did
think of, in addition to what you've said already is
his daughter. Again, I think she was I think she's

(15:33):
only eight years old. So you know, if he just
passed everything to his wife, which generally that's what married
people do, I don't foresee there being many issues here,
but if he did leave something specific to his daughter,
that could present issues just with her being so young
and things of potentially having young people, you know, Beneficiary.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Money absolutely, you know, we're then we're talking guardianship involvement.
And then even still, I mean, we don't know exactly
what his net worth was, but in the event that
that could be something really substantial and it was a
situation like you just pointed out, Frank, there's no way

(16:17):
of governing how over what period of time that they
would have access to this money. So theoretically, by the
time she reached eighteen, no matter what life circumstances would be,
she could potentially inherit. Whatever that sum is now, it
could be a little or in a situation where it
could be a lot. Obviously that there's certain things that
could be as problematic. I mean, think about when anybody

(16:40):
when you were eighteen, did you really have that type
of financial maturity. Oh no, to appreciate exactly now, I
mean so, I mean it's again it's little things, but
they could have profound impact.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, I think just to put a number out there,
I think what I saw was is es to made
it net worth was around six million.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
But I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
If that's accurate, because again, it doesn't seem like there's
been much publicly or released about any of this. But
I mean, even if you wanted to, you know, carve off,
you know, a small percentage of that to the daughter,
that would be a pretty still a pretty substantial amount
of money.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Still significant money, Yeah, still significant, you know, lumpsome payout
to any young person. I mean that that's you know,
completely a totally different story.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
And and and obviously the other thing that that now
sparks in my brain again, just because because of the
conversation here is obviously now with with him having passed,
the surviving spouse should update her things most likely to
make sure if something happens to her, then what happens

(17:54):
to not only the daughter, but if there are the
beneficiaries she wants to provide for, or what happens if
the daughter predeceases. I mean, I know this is all
real cheery and really, you know, uplifting to think about
early Saturday morning, but Saturday morning, you know, these are
the kind of things that unfortunately we have to consider

(18:15):
as planners. And this is the kind of thing that
that a lot of people don't spend a lot of
time thinking about. And unfortunately it's something that you kind
of have to do some thinking about, even if the
likelihood of it happening isn't very high.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I know, like sometimes we try to
inject some levity whenever we can, but guys like, don't
we understand this is not a glamorous topic. It's not
things that people really want to be focused on or
really want to be giving much thought to it. Even
times when we even have the clients to have you know,
they do schedule the appointment, they do come in the door.

(18:53):
It's still difficult to talk about even though they obviously
have recognized the importance of it and they're sitting there
in the office, but it can get, you know, uncomfortable.
And but sometimes, you know, we have to have those
hard discussions and we have to give it some thought
because really that's like, in a way, it's almost selfish

(19:13):
not to because we're doing the disservice to the people
that we're going to end up leaving in charge and
the love the loved ones we're going to leave behind
because it's something that we didn't necessarily want to face
with during our lifetime, or just because we thought, well,
I'm still really young, I shouldn't have to think about
this right now, or I don't want to think about this.
This is not pleasant, right but we just have to

(19:33):
think about repercussions and what that could mean for our
loved ones.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Yeah, no, I again, I think you're spot on here.
My wife and I remember when we were kind of
doing some things for us, we had a long talk
about what would happen if something happened to us one
of us, both of us, and it wasn't fun, but
it was needed to be done. So that just goes
to show you have to you have to have the talk.
So we're just at the news. So Tommy, why don't
you hang out for a little bit and we will

(19:59):
kind back to the second half of Life Happens right
here after the news.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Good everybody, thanks for sticking.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
Through the news. We really appreciate it. This is the
second half of Life Happens Radio, our weekly radio program
where we talk about state planning, elder love, medicaid, when
I'm on special needs, guardianships, wills, trust, all those fun things.
So again, thanks for being here, and thankfully I'm joined
still by our associate from New York City, mister Tommy Morasco.

(20:28):
Tommy still there with me.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
I'm still here, and I'm so happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Sounds great, sounds great, So why don't you give me
thirty seconds here. I'm gonna plug something for us and
then we'll get it more into some hopefully some lighter things.
I don't want to say different, but lighter hopefully, because
I think I think I can bring some some levity
to some of these things. So we are doing a
program next week on Wednesday, August sixth at the East

(20:54):
green Bush Community Library. It's going to be both us,
so Pierre O'Connor and Strauss and then are good friends
from ever Home Care Advisors and we're doing a program
at the library called your Home or the Nursing Home
or we talk about different kind of planning techniques that
we have and ultimately the goal of it is to
just spread education and things about things you can do

(21:15):
to stay in your house long term, protect your house
if something happens, and maybe some options to you know,
get your care in your house if you do need care,
or if you do need a nursing home or other
arrangements as you get older, at least protecting what you
have because at the end of the day, again we
typically know when we ask anybody do you want to

(21:37):
be home or do you want to be in a
nursing home, ninety nine point nine percent of the time
people say they want to be in their house. So
we want to walk you through how to do that.
So if you're interested in coming to see us again,
it's twelve to one thirty on Wednesday, August sixth at
the East green Bush Community Library and then we're going

(21:58):
to follow that one up in Gilderland the following Wednesday,
so Wednesday, August thirteenth. That one is starting at twelve thirty,
it goes till two, and that one's going to be
at the Gilderland YMCA.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
These are free to attend. We are doing lunch for them.
So if you want to register for those, you can
either go to our website which is www. Dot here
at law dot com slash events and go to the
events tab sign up there, or if you want to call.
If phones are more your thing, then give the office
a call which is five one eight four, and then

(22:33):
somebody can take your information and get your registered to
come see us. So thanks to those who have signed
up already, and we hope to see you soon. And
if you're interested, sign up and then we'll be glad
to see you too. So Tommy, I'm gonna give you
the choice, since you're the guest. We have two big
celebrities that have passed away that I think we need
to talk about. So one is Ozzy Osbourne, the obvious

(22:56):
hard you know rock legend. I think it's probably appropriate.
And the other one is Hulk Hogan, who oh, I
don't know. I mean to a non wrestling person. He's
probably the most famous wrestler ever probably if I had
to guess, so, I would, So who do you think

(23:17):
who would you prefer?

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Who's first?

Speaker 3 (23:21):
I would say simply because the information that we have
on it and how I believe a good example of
proper planning is I'd like to start with that was
your Osborne?

Speaker 2 (23:31):
Fair enough?

Speaker 1 (23:32):
So so so I'll let you do some talking here, Toy,
because I don't want to hog the show. But I think,
just to put this in context, I think I became
most aware of him because of the Osborne Show, which
which was not recent, which seems crazy because I feel

(23:54):
like it just like blew up and it was just
everywhere for a little while, and I never releast watched it,
Like I I watched some of it because I feel
like you had to just to kind of know why
everyone was talking about them. But my memory of him, yeah,
my memory, My memories of him are him just like
just screaming gibberish at Sharon laughing about it. That's true,

(24:17):
and I don't know, and I don't know if that
was like how he was depicted throughout the whole show,
but that's kind of my memory of him just from.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
That kind of he was like he was almost almost
like like a characature essentially, Like they almost made him
like a cartoonish character. Which is funny because I'm sure
with the generation who grew up with him and knew
him otherwise, obviously, I mean, his personality was always kind
of that spun and silly kind of, you know, persona,

(24:49):
but obviously in his later years it was a it
was a different take on it. But my first experience
with Ozzy Osbourne was I grew up in an immigrant
household and my neighbors were like all Americans, I mean,
like multiple generations in America. Sure, so they knew like

(25:10):
all the good classic rock from from actually having experienced it.
So they had introduced me to Black Sabbath. Oh okay,
I was pretty young, so that was my That was
my first introduction to the Ozzy Osbourne. But then, yeah,
when that show came out, I mean that's kind of
like when reality TV was like really starting to peak.
So I feel like everybody who was you know, anyone

(25:33):
at the time, it was it was the thing to watch.
But yeah, I can't say I did not watch my
fair share of that show.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
No, I was kind of hoping you did, because, like
I said, I'm not overly familiar with a lot of
the show. It's just I know it existed. I know
I watched pieces of it, and you know, probably a
few episodes, but I wasn't I wasn't viewing or tuning
in every week. I can't say I saw everything, but
I know a lot of people.

Speaker 3 (25:54):
They religiously, Yeah, but enough, I've thought, I've seen it. No,
I didn't watch religiously, but I definitely saw enough. And
it was fun, right, that was the point of it.
Obviously drama and everything else that comes along with reality TV,
but it was still it was still fun. It gives
you like a peak behind the curtain of like these
larger than like people, and you just it humanizes them

(26:18):
to a degree. And and actually, to go back to
your point earlier, like obviously you don't wish anything bad
to happen, and yes, it gives us something to talk about.
But I think that's the exact reason, is it humanizes
these people. We look at them as these icons like
oh my goodness. It's more like, you know what, the
Prince of Darkness, the you know, legend in his field,

(26:40):
he bit the.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Head off of that on the stage right like like that.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
But but then, like you see, it's like they have
to they have to deal with the same things we do.
And then when you see a show like that too,
you realize it's they have family dynamics. Yeah, obviously circumstances
are different because they have different problems and different issues
that us, you know, normal regular non famous folks don't have.
But there's still people, and the planning is no different

(27:10):
whether you have a lot or whether you have a little.
I mean, Frank, We've had plenty of people come into
our firm that have these extreme networks as well, and
there's no there's no fame behind it, so it doesn't
change anything. Yeah, but the need for a plan is
always there.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
I think Ozias worm was like somewhere in like the
two hundred and twenty million mark.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, that's that's the number that I've seen publicized. Again,
I don't know how people figure this stuff out, because
I don't think people just have a receipt in their
back pocket for when they go to the feral home
that just says this is how much I'm worth, like
right now. But you know, I'm sure there's educated ways
to guess and things. But now on top of it
just being a you know, that's a pretty high number, right,

(27:57):
I know, I'm never getting to that number unless the
power of ball happens or.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Something like that.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
But uh, you know, but it's not only just the
amount of money that I think is is meaningful here,
but it's the type of things that he has that
encompass that number, because he's got real estate, he's got
his music, he's got you know, yeah, he's got copyrights.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
He's got he's got the.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Future things like future music rights, licensing reruns of his show.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And then I think.

Speaker 1 (28:31):
He was also involved with like a casino or something
like that too. So so I mean, you know, you've
got an operating business. And then and again, like maybe
this isn't the best example, but you know, you've had
stories in the past that talk about, you know, people
having their music catalog sold or their rights to their

(28:52):
songs sold, whether it's there alive and it's them doing it,
or it's their agent doing it, or it's their state
doing it. So there and then and then to throw
just kind of another wrinkle here, and again I didn't
know this because I didn't know much about his personal life,
but he has a blended family like where yeah, which,

(29:14):
so he was married twice. He had his first wife
and then he had three I think he had two
bio kids from his first marriage, and then he adopted
a third with his first wife, and then he then
you know, split from her married Sharon, who again you
you got to know quite well on the show, and
then she's i think she's had a pretty public life

(29:35):
since the show, and then the three of and then
they had three kids together themselves, so you know, so
all in we've got ex wife, second wife Sharon, and
then five bio kids and an adopted kid.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
So you've got a lot of money and a lot of.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
People like and that's just you know, it's pretty as
diverse as as they come, right, because you have a
mixture of different marriages, children from both marriages, and an adoption.
So I mean, like there's and then like you said,
just the the breakdown of the different asset holdings that
he has. They they there's a lot here. I mean,

(30:18):
I'm sure you could teach like a class just on
the dynamics of his family life and assets. But he
is an example of someone who made sure to take
the steps of carefully providing for and planning out exactly
what he wanted. Now, one thing that's come out is

(30:39):
that there's no interest of ever selling the music catalogs.
That they believe that that's something that you know, that
was near and dear to him and to the family,
and they're going to keep that in the family. But
one thing he was adamant about was making sure that
he didn't care where the kids were, what kind of
life they were leading. Now, whether they were adopted, whether

(31:00):
they were from a different marriage, doesn't matter. He wanted
to make sure that every single one was provided for.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Which I talk about talk about a good thing.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
I mean just as as a parent myself and Tommy, Tommy,
you're a parent too, you know. I mean again, I
don't I don't know much about these people, but I
thought it was very, very nice and kind of surprising
in a way that apparently he through his planning documents
and the wishes that he made known to the people
close to him, was that, you know, I don't really

(31:29):
care about the circumstances that what's either happened in the
past or what's going to happen in the future, but yeah,
I want everybody to.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Know I want all those close to me taken care of. That's,
you know.

Speaker 1 (31:40):
And unfortunately, I think not that we don't hear a
lot of or don't not that we don't hear things
like that when with famous people, but I think it's
just we're anticipating that, like it's going to be messy
and things like when you've got all these all these
different dynamics going on. And it sounds like at least
his intent was to kind of keep it as clean
as he could by making it known I like and

(32:03):
want to provide for everybody.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
Yeah, and doing so in a way to kind of
try and proactively handle any kind of, like you said,
any kind of like a message situation. And that's why
the planning is so important, because there are certain things
that we could have our beliefs on right and in
this situation, his is I want to treat everyone equally,
But other people's situation could mean I don't want to

(32:29):
treat everyone equally, or I don't want to provide for
certain people at all, and those are you know, sometimes
you really got to prepare for a flight. But if
you do things the right way and you implement certain
trust planning and other techniques, that you know we could
assist with. Then we can at least minimize that type
of fallout or really make sure that your wishes are

(32:51):
adhered to and that not someone's going to come in
after the fact and try to disrupt what it is
that you had originally intended. And I think that's one
of the biggest places.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
No, you're spot on, So let's just expand on that
and then and then we have to go to our
third break. Unfortunately, so just to make it clear, right,
you don't have to leave everything equally to your family
if you don't want to. I think it's cleanest to
do that. But if there are wishes that you have
people you don't want to provide for, or at least
you don't want it to be equal, there's very little

(33:21):
circumstances where that cannot be accomplished. It just but that's
why you need a plan, because you want to make
sure that the plan mirrors and actually executes the way
that you want, whether it's equal, unequal, disinheriting, including other people,
you know, whatever it is. So it just goes to
show again the importance of having a plan. So with that,
let's let's take our last break and then we'll come back,

(33:42):
we'll get into we'll finish Ozzie, we'll talk a little
bit about Haul Cogan and then and then we're going
to be at the end of the show, so stick around.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
We'll be right back after this break. It's our final segment.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Was half I was half expecting to hear Iron Man
come on.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
I know, I was kind of think I was.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
I was kind of curious if we we're gonna if
you're gonna get something like that. So now it's it's
good to be back for our final segment. Here again
Life Happens Radio. I'm Frank Hemming, joined by mister Tommy
Morasco from downstate. We've been talking about celebrities and some
fun stories hopefully and some some kind of life lessons
that we're seeing here and Tommy, while we're on the break,

(34:19):
I did have another thought here and again nothing's been
released about this, or at least nothing that I've seen,
but I did have another wrinkle here with Ozzie that
if there's anything you want to add, I'm happy to
throw it out.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
There for you. He was not born yet.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
He was born in the UK, so okay, but as us.

Speaker 2 (34:38):
Assets, Yeah, but he might have non US assets too.
You know, I don't, I don't. I don't.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Again, I haven't seen anything that specifically I think mentions
anything like that, unless I'm miss misremembering. But entirely it's
entirely possible that he might need or he might have
needed not only United States planning, but he might have
also needed to have affairs taken care of over sees
as well. So just to show you might need a

(35:04):
really complex plan if you own stuff in different places
or you have beneficiaries located in different places.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Yeah, and one last comment I had wanted to make
was that even if we decided we wanted to leave
people equally or inequally, the way in the manner in
which we leave things behind can also be govern right.
So it says, okay, well, you know what, I do
want to give everybody something, but maybe I'm not going
to just give it outright to certain people. So you

(35:32):
can structure how you give things out, whether it's further
in trust, whether it's over a certain period of time.
You know, in this case as well, you know, with
one of his children, he's leaving something in trust until
they reach a certain age. So I mean, there's there's
so much flexibility in planning. There's so much more than
what people can do. And if you're obviously, if you're

(35:53):
not familiar or you don't practice in this type of law,
you may not realize what it is that you have
a to you. So that's why I think it's so
imperative when that you sit down and you have a meeting.
And I always tell my clients at the beginning of
every consult in Frank, I'm sure you do something similar,
but I tell them the reason you're here today is
to get an education. My job is to roll over

(36:14):
your circumstances and tell you everything that you need to know,
because the last thing I want is for you to
hear something from somewhere else and say, well, Tommy, you
never mentioned that to me. No, My goal in every
consult is to say, in your circumstances, these are all
the different possibilities, and then obviously, depending on wishes, etc.
Will come up with an action plan. But it's so

(36:36):
important to have the conversation to see what's available to you.
And as you were just pointing out, if you have
assets in multiple states, how to avoid having to deal
with ancillary probates in New York In Florida and Connecticut
or California, wherever you might have property situated. There are
ways of being able to streamline and creating efficiencies in
your plan, but it's so important that you have to

(36:58):
have that meeting.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
No, I think that's I think that's great.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
My my go to line when I find out people
own property in either different states or different countries, or
you know, whatever their circumstances is, is Probate's kind of
a mess, and why would you want to put your
family through that in multiple places?

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Right? A lot of our job is to.

Speaker 1 (37:18):
Simplify things by keeping people out of court here in
New York. And if all you have is stuff in
New York, then then that's great. But if you have
stuff in different countries, different states, why would you want
to put your your family through court proceedings and potential
legal battles and things in multiple places. You probably don't
want to do it once, let alone twice or even

(37:39):
more depending on what you have.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Absolutely so, and just to just to.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Expand on your one point, Yeah, I guess what's been
at least publicly acknowledged so far is that Ozzie's one daughter, Amy,
who it sounds like she wasn't really involved with the show.
She didn't want to be. She's the oldest daughter of
Ozzie and Sharon. He struck sured her inheritance to go
into a trust where then she would get quarterly payments

(38:04):
until she reached the age of fifty. And I think
she's forty two, forty three something like that. So she's
going to get, you know, four payments a year for
let's call it seven ish years, and then when she
reaches fifty, whatever remains in the trust sounds like it
distributes to her at.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
That time, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
So you know why he did it that way, I
don't know, but it sounds it sounds like there was
some thought put there. And you know, if that works
for him, and it worked for the family and everything,
she's still going to get a nice chunk of money
for a while, and then she's probably going to get
a bigger pot of money in.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
A little while.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
So exactly, all right, let's go to Hull Covi And
so Tommy question for you, you a wrestling fan or
were you a wrestling.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Fan or not? Yeah? So I was. I was like
obsessed when I was a kid with WWF me too,
I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
So again, I'm going to make this about me for
twenty seconds. My first memory with wrestling, and I was
it was my favorite thing growing up when I was
when I was little, I used to watch it with
my dad and then my friends. And my first memory
with wrestling is my dad had a coworker at the
time who had pay per view and he taped like

(39:20):
on a on a VHS tape. He taped uh WrestleMania seven,
which happened in nineteen ninety one, and I remember my
dad bringing it home and making a big deal that
we were going to sit down and watch it as
a family one night, like at dinner on like a
Friday night or something like that. And I remember sitting
there like for three hours, you know, two and a
half or three hours, whatever it was, and watching WrestleMania.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
And the headline, the headlining match.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Of that of that pay per view was Hulk Hogan
against Sergeant Slaughter in the main event for the and
and Hogan and Hogan, uh I think he was he
was fighting for the World Championship of WWF at the time,
and and it was like a twenty minute match and
Hulk got his you know, his rear end kicked around

(40:05):
for probably eighteen of the twenty minutes, but of course
at the end he did his patented Hulk up. He
did the punches, the kick to the face, the big
leg drop, the place went nuts and Hulk won, and
it was It's still like one of the It still
probably would would make me, you know, reminisce and tear
up to a degree of missing that memory with my
dad if I watched it literally right now.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Well, I love that. I love that.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, So I was a little bummed, but I saw
he died because I know he's had his public issues
and things. But the crazier part too here was so
he died. So he has a he has a pretty
substantial estate himself. I think I saw twenty or twenty
five million something like that. So again not pennies here,

(40:50):
but he has his compound or mansion is in Clearwater,
which is where my grandparents lived. So I was just
in Clearwater last last with everything going on with my grandparents.
So it was kind of nuts that I was reading,
you know, when he went into cardiac arrest and he
went to the hospital that he was in the same
hospital that my grandfather was in or at least he

(41:11):
got taken to the same hospital, and I was thinking, like,
how crazy would have been if I would have been
just walking around the hospital and heard that whole.

Speaker 2 (41:19):
COVID wasn't there or had been there.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
So yeah, So anyway, the big thing here that was
the headlining event of him, rather than his death obviously,
was that he had had a falling out with his
daughter Brooke, and there was a lot of speculation onto
what was going to happen given that he had had
this falling out with her, and again, similar to Ozzie,

(41:45):
not as complicated, but he also had a blended family
where he'd been married.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
I think he was married three times, if I'm remembering correctly.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, I think I think. I think that's I think
you're right.

Speaker 1 (41:55):
So he was married for to his first wife, and
I think they were married for like a quite a
quite a while, and then he had his two children,
his daughter Brooke and his son Nick, with his first wife.
They eventually divorced. He got remarried, and he was with
his second wife for like tennis year or something like that.
They didn't have any kids or anything. They split, and

(42:16):
then he recently married his third wife. I think within
like the last two two and a half years something
like that, and there's like a pretty significant age difference
between the two of them. And I don't know if
there's like other family dynamics with the kids and the
third wife, but I wouldn't be shocked if if maybe
we hear something like that. So again we're talking blended

(42:38):
family issues and stuff here, But the big headline here
is that Brooke essentially wanted to be taken from his estate.
So Tommy, what do you think about that? So?

Speaker 3 (42:50):
I think too, when certain conversations are are not had
or listen to that person that her he wanted to
move herself from any potential conflict that she foresaw that
could become the issue, and she just was like, you
know what, before that, even if there's even an opportunity
for that, I want nothing to do with it. And

(43:12):
it's unfortunate that sometimes people feel there's no way out.
And that's why, like, you know, we really stress the
importance of planning because did it have to go that way? No,
not necessarily. Obviously we don't know the true intent behind
what her wishes were and why, so I'm not going
to presume to know. But if it were, what I

(43:33):
read about just trying to avoid conflict. There's other ways
that we can go about that without having to take
it to the extreme. So listen, I respect to her wishes.
If that's what her true wishes were, then obviously, then
who am I to say otherwise. But if it were
really a matter of just not wanting to deal with
conflict or to worry about having to deal with it,
it's unfortunate because there are ways around that. And that's

(43:57):
why again, having the discussion, has hard as it might be,
could really lead to either some type of flexible a
creative planning that could still accomplish what it is that
we want and avoid you know, this, this possible fallout.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, and I'm just gonna make sure that we have
time to talk about this because we've got about two
minutes left of the show. And I don't know about you, Tommy,
but I get really prickly when I read news stories
about what we do because I think they I know,
at the end of the day, the newspapers, the news articles,
the websites, their their job is to promote clicks or

(44:33):
get subscriptions, things like that. But I always get a
little prickly when I read things I'm just like, but
that doesn't make any sense. And here a lot of
the stuff that I was reading about Brooks specifically said
that she had called hulks like financial Team, financial advisor
or whatever, and that she had requested she be removed
from everything. Okay, fine, Like, that's that's probably what happened, right,

(44:56):
or at least why would I have reason to think.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
That's not what happened.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
But just because she wanted to be removed doesn't mean anything.
He had to do something to get her out. He
would have to do that. Somebody would have to take
steps to remove her. You can't just do it to
your you know, you can't do it yourself, right, So
whether so, I mean, if if that news then got
past the Hulk and then he said, sure, if she

(45:20):
doesn't want to be in it, then I'm going to
change it. Fine, that was his choice, but it would
have had to have been his choice, not not hers.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Absolutely, You're absolutely right. That's great, and that is a
very great point. That is a great point.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
So, I mean, I I just to just to make
just to make it clear. So if you read stories
about this, you know, or if you have something maybe
similar in your family, you know people cannot want to
be involved at all, but at the end of the day,
in a lot of respects, you're allowed to leave your
stuff to who you want, how you want, with with
with some exceptions spouse being the major one, at least
here in New York.

Speaker 3 (45:54):
So that was my last thing with a new marriage
to that. If you were in New York, that could
pose a here is the shoe, A mixture wasn't involved
in the planning or it was cut out, and that
could also cause no no.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
I think that's a great way to end the show.
So Tommy, we're right here at the end of the show.
So thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate you being.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
Here, and thank you for having Thanks you for your.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Insight, and I look forward to doing this again with
you me too, So thank you guys for being here.
Tune in next week for next week's episode.