I Can't Haz Billion Dollarz?

I am very excited. I get to do a follow up article! It's like I'm a real journalist. How often do you get to be angered by something more than once? It's like lightning striking twice, and hitting you in the shins each time. Very exciting.

In one of my more popular posts, I reported on Leona Helmsley, loaded Hotelier and frequent feature in the New York Times crossword puzzle who passed away back in 2007. In a move which is part out of love of animals, and part out of spite for her free-loading family, Mrs. Helmsley left her $6 Billion estate to a charitable trust dedicated to the welfare of animals, and dogs in particular. She reportedly got this idea from Hotel For Dogs.

Now 6 Billion dollars is the type of thing that you go to court for. That is just what Leona's freeloading brother and grandsons did. Much to the dismay of Leona's Bichon Frieze, today a court ruled that the trustees are free to assign benefactors as they see fit. Mrs. Helmsley's relatives say they will use the money for charities which covers "...healthcare, medical research, human services, and education... ." This of course translates into "... our wives' plastic surgery, wives' experimental plastic surgery, hookers' plastic surgery, and putting our kids through college... ."

I'm not a huge fan of this ruling — if I will my heirs to flush my estate down the toilet in small denomination bills, they better damn well do it, or I will haunt them. However, there is apparently legal precedent that leaving billions of dollars to a dog is insane.

That's right, someone has left there entire estate to dogs before.

But, it is probably for the best that this ruling went down the way it did. The Helmsley estate is worth more than the GPC of some small countries, and I have never been one to trust charities... doing things for free, sounds fishy.


Above: Slum-dog, not Billionaire. Still cute.