The 45-case list organizes its entries into the categories below. Here is every case, what actually happened, and why it is not a failure of a properly formed offshore asset protection trust. The full review (PDF) carries the complete facts and analysis for each.
TICC is Timing, Illegal, Comply, Control - the four things that decide these cases. Read together, the cited decisions are a catalog of TICC conduct. Each is an execution or conduct failure, not a failure of offshore trust law:
T, timing. Funding a trust after a judgment (Legendre, Solow), during litigation (Allen, Weese), or amid an investigation (AmeriDebt) invites ordinary fraudulent-transfer law, offshore or not.
I, illegal conduct. Tax evasion and fraud prosecutions (Thompson, Butselaar, Schneider) involve crimes, not asset protection.
C, comply. Bankruptcy fraud and non-disclosure (Brennan, Portnoy, Colburn) are failures to comply with an obligation under oath, and are the opposite of how legitimate planning works, in the open. Where a settlor was jailed rather than sanctioned, it was for refusing an order he could have obeyed.
C, control. Settlors who kept protector powers with repatriation authority (Affordable Media), trustee-appointment and beneficiary powers (Lawrence), or de facto direction of distributions (Rogan, Grant) gave courts the very handle used against them.
The pattern in this category: a U.S. court orders repatriation, the settlor's own conduct (retained control, concealment, non-credible impossibility claims) leads to a contempt finding, and the trust assets stay offshore.
Telemarketing-scheme defendants were held in contempt after refusing to repatriate; they were the trust's protectors with power to force repatriation, had pulled over $1M from the trust, and tried to resign as protectors only after the FTC exposed their role.
A properly structured trust would never leave the settlors holding protector powers that let them force repatriation. Retained control, not structural failure. Click here to learn more
Trust funded two months before a $20.4M arbitration award the settlor plainly anticipated; he kept the power to appoint trustees and exclude or reinstate beneficiaries; held in contempt.
A fraudulent, settlor-controlled trust, funded on the eve of a known award with retained powers the court used to reject his impossibility defense. Click here to learn more
Contempt turned on his refusal to provide a sworn accounting after a $62M judgment; the court froze proceeds of his U.S. mansion.
The court never reached the offshore corpus. The one reachable asset was U.S.-situs real estate, a vulnerability of holding domestic property, not a defect in the trust. Click here to learn more
BankFirst v. Legendre
Nassau trust created shortly after a $650k judgment; the trust paid his personal bills; jailed five days for withholding information.
A textbook fraudulent conveyance, post-judgment funding, retained beneficial use, and the assets and key players never left U.S. reach.
Barbee v. Goldstein
Colorado RICO case; the settlor was jailed for non-compliance and secured release by paying ~$586k; his trustee and protector then consented to winding up the trust.
The offshore barrier was never tested on its own terms: the trustee consented to liquidation. A structural failure of that trust, not one inherent to a correctly implemented offshore trust.
Chadwick v. Green
Fourteen years of confinement for refusing to return ~$2.5M to a divorce court.
No trust was involved at all: the money sat in offshore annuities and a Panamanian bank account he controlled and simply refused to repatriate.
After a securities verdict, assets moved to his wife, who settled a Cook Islands trust; he was held in contempt for making no reasonable effort to recover what he had transferred to her.
No order ran against the Cook Islands trustee and Cook Islands law was never applied. The transfers that funded the trust were attacked directly, though: the SEC brought a separate fraudulent-transfer and equitable-lien action against Mrs. Solow. A timing failure, not a jurisdiction failure. Click here to learn more
Morris v. Morris
Post-nuptial forfeiture dispute; by her own account she was jailed for indirect criminal contempt, failing to appear in court.
The contempt was for failing to appear, not for the trust, which (administered by Southpac) was never set aside. The parties settled.
Morris v. Wroble
Not a separate chart entry.
The chart lists it with Morris v. Morris as one entry. The HTJ Tax list splits the pair.
Eulich v. U.S.
IRS document-production fight over a Bahamian trust; escalating fines until he produced the documents.
He was ultimately able to obtain and produce every requested document, exactly what a properly structured trust allows, while the underlying assets stayed protected.
FTC v. AmeriDebt
Trusts in Delaware, Nevis, and the Cook Islands created within two months of FTC Civil Investigative Demands; the defendant was later jailed for concealing other assets.
Trusts created in the teeth of an investigation, and the contempt turned on concealment of other assets, not any failure to repatriate the Nevis or Cook Islands trusts.
Belize trusts found property of the bankruptcy estate; transfers fraudulent and self-settled; the settlor retained complete control while the foreign trustee was a figurehead.
A properly structured trust vests assets in an independent foreign trustee holding them offshore. Here the settlor controlled U.S.-based accounts himself.
Fortney v. Kuipers
Post-accident transfers to family and friends, then bankruptcy.
Domestic transfers only, no offshore trust is involved.
Advanced Telecommunications Network v. Allen
Funds wired into two self-settled Cook Islands trusts after suit was filed and while a freeze motion was pending; contempt followed.
Fraudulent-transfer timing, not advance planning. And despite years of repatriation orders, the creditor never recovered the trust funds, the corpus went undisturbed.
Rush University v. Sessions
Illinois court held a self-settled trust reachable for a $1.5M pledge.
The trust's assets were all U.S.-situs, Illinois real estate and a Colorado partnership interest, reachable regardless of the Cook Islands governing-law clause. Offshore in name only, and the opinion reflects no actual invasion of the principal.
Creditor moved for contempt after the debtor funded a Cook Islands trust mid-litigation; the court held a hearing and denied the motion.
Actually a win for the offshore trust: the court credited that the debtor could not compel the trustee, and the creditor offered no evidence of retained control. Click here to learn more
Channel Islands trust funded as his loan guarantee was about to be called; he made himself primary beneficiary, kept sweeping control, and failed to disclose it in bankruptcy.
Retained control plus non-disclosure: the two things a properly structured, properly disclosed trust never involves.
SEC v. Brennan
Gibraltar trust funded with ~$4M in bearer bonds near the end of his SEC trial; omitted from his bankruptcy petition; he was convicted of bankruptcy fraud.
Intentional concealment on bankruptcy schedules is a crime. It says nothing about lawful, disclosed planning.
In re Colburn
Discharge denied for false oaths and concealment regarding a Bermuda trust.
The court found the trust's assets were not proven to be property of the estate, he lost his discharge for concealment, not because the trust failed.
In re Brooks
Counted as a separate failure.
A duplicate of Sattin v. Brooks below.
In re Rensin
Florida-law ruling that a self-settled discretionary trust's assets were reachable in principle.
The corpus remained undisturbed, the court dismissed the declaratory claim because the trustee, an indispensable party, had never been joined.
In re Cyr
Bankruptcy trustee's fraudulent-transfer claims allowed to proceed against a Texas family trust.
A domestic Texas trust created by the debtor's in-laws, and the ruling was a motion to dismiss; nothing was decided on the merits.
Sattin v. Brooks
Stock certificates held property of the estate on a choice-of-law ground (Connecticut public policy vs. Bermuda/Jersey law).
The trust corpus remained undisturbed notwithstanding the order, and a properly formed offshore trust would not have left the settlor with such broad beneficiary rights.
In re Smith
Cook Islands trust formed three days before a judgment was finalized for appeal; involuntary bankruptcy followed.
The settlor was pushed into involuntary bankruptcy, but no facts suggest the trust corpus was disturbed. (The list cites this entry as "In re Schmidt", no case by that name could be located; this appears to be the matter intended.)
Cook Islands trust funded almost entirely with marital assets; the divorce court awarded the wife half their value.
The court accepted the trust as legitimate, disclaimed jurisdiction over its corpus, and entered a $2M in personam equitable-distribution award against the husband personally, without invading or setting aside the trust.
Westrate v. Westrate
Husband secretly moved 90% of marital assets (~$11M) into a Cook Islands trust that did not name his wife as beneficiary; she learned of it in the divorce.
The case settled and the trust assets remained untouched. A drafting and disclosure failure toward a spouse, not a piercing.
Breitenstine v. Breitenstine
Bahamas trust funded with marital assets; Wyoming courts found fraudulent conveyance and awarded the wife half the marital estate.
The Wyoming court could not, and did not, directly alter title to the Bahamian res or bind the foreign trustee, it reached the corpus only indirectly through coercive orders against the husband, and recovery still depended on his compliance.
Divorce court awarded shares locked in a Belize trust; the husband was jailed until he transferred the stock or its value.
The court never reached the Belize corpus, the trustee invoked the trust's duress clause and refused. The court coerced the husband personally, finding he had the means and had never claimed poverty. Click here to learn more
The treasure-hunter defendant moved disputed gold coins into a Belize trust, absconded, pleaded guilty to criminal contempt, then broke his plea agreement and was jailed.
Not an offshore-trust-on-the-merits case at all: the trust's validity was never litigated, and he was jailed for refusing to honor his plea agreement.
U.S. v. Butselaar
Criminal prosecution of a tax advisor who built offshore structures to conceal over $100M of client income from the IRS.
Not an asset protection case, a criminal tax-fraud prosecution of the advisor for concealment structures, with no creditor or trustee ever trying to reach trust assets.
Jerome Schneider case
Criminal prosecution of a promoter who sold sham offshore banks with a "decontrol" process designed to conceal ownership and evade tax.
No offshore asset protection trusts were involved, the structures were sham banks and corporations, and the case is a fraud prosecution of their promoter.
Pyramid-scheme funds moved to an Antiguan bank; repatriated under a settlement.
There was no trust at all, corporate funds in an offshore bank account in the company's own name.
SEC v. Greenberg
Unpaid SEC judgment; evidence showed he was living lavishly through a Gibraltar trust he treated as his personal account; his impossibility defense failed and he was held in contempt.
Not a failure of an offshore asset protection trust, the sanction ran against Mr. Greenberg personally, and recovery still depended on his compliance.
SEC v. Cook
Fraudulent-investment-scheme defendant jailed for failing to repatriate ~$46M from offshore accounts.
Money sitting in offshore bank accounts and entities he personally controlled, not a trust with an independent trustee.
$36M tax judgment; the surviving spouse was held in contempt after transfers from the offshore trusts to herself (through her children's accounts) showed she retained the power to reach the assets.
A personal-conduct failure on the settlor's side, her own transfers revealed apparent control, and valid federal tax liens had already attached. Not a structural defeat of the offshore jurisdiction. Click here to learn more
U.S. v. Plath
Contempt for failing to comply with IRS summonses about offshore accounts.
Offshore credit-card accounts with a Bahamas trust company, no offshore asset protection trust involved.
U.S. v. Rogan
$64M Medicare-fraud judgment; Bahamian trusts found to be the debtor's alter ego.
The FBI documented that he directly or indirectly directed ~$8.15M of distributions to himself, retained substantial control, the defining opposite of proper structuring.
Indiana Investors (Hammon-Whiting; Fink)
Domestic trusts designed to shift control offshore upon "duress"; restraining orders froze everything before the shift occurred.
The trusts were domestic until triggered, control never left the United States, so U.S. courts retained full authority. An argument against trigger-style structures, not against trusts already offshore.
California appellate court held the New Zealand trustee subject to California personal jurisdiction based on its extensive California business contacts.
A jurisdictional holding only, a court finding it has jurisdiction over a foreign trustee does not mean the trust corpus was reached in any way.
Bank of America v. Weese
Cook Islands trust funded (~$25M) starting the day arbitration notice was sent; after a $17.6M award, litigation in Maryland and the Cook Islands settled for ~$13M.
The trust corpus remained undisturbed, and the matter concluded with a consensual settlement, which does not alter that conclusion.
Netsphere v. Baron
In a bankruptcy fight, the sole beneficiary of a Cook Islands trust (trustee: SouthPac) directed a $330k distribution to a court officer as security; the Fifth Circuit later reversed the receivership and ordered ~$1.6M released back to him.
The $330k was a voluntary beneficiary distribution, precisely what a properly formed trust permits, not a coerced extraction. No other trust asset was reached, and on appeal the corpus and trust-owned entities remained beyond the court's grasp.
A bankruptcy court imposed a constructive trust over $302k from a commercial deal; the Sixth Circuit reversed.
No offshore asset protection trust exists in this case, it is a constructive-trust dispute.
FDIC v. Lewis
$66M in judgments; creditors traced a St. Vincent trust and Isle of Man company and moved for repatriation, which the court denied, directing them to exhaust other remedies first.
The court left the trust intact. And the structure was post-claim fraud on creditors, not bona fide advance planning.
In re Steering Committee
Counted among the 45.
The case could not be located despite extensive research; the search is ongoing.
In re Tinsley
Counted among the 45.
The case could not be located despite extensive research; the search is ongoing.
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