Steven J. Oshins and the Offshore Case-Law Record: 41 Questions

A chart titled "45 FAPT Cases Gone Wrong" circulated for roughly eight months as evidence that offshore asset protection trusts fail. We read every decision on it. Then the list became 21 cases, then three articles by other authors, and then - asked to name a single case - one decision that turns on a settlor who kept control of his own trust.

This page sets out that record with its sources, and publishes the 41 questions sent to Steven J. Oshins about it. He has not answered them.

Two things first, because they matter more than anything below. A bar complaint is an allegation, not a finding: the State Bar of Nevada makes its own determination, none has been made, and nothing here says otherwise. And this is a narrow subject. Mr. Oshins is a real figure in domestic trust planning, with genuine credentials and a genuine record on Nevada trust legislation. Nothing here disputes that. The question is whether specific published descriptions of identified court decisions match what those decisions actually held — which is checkable, by anyone, against the decisions themselves.

What reading all 45 decisions found

We did the unglamorous thing: we obtained every available decision cited on the chart and read it. The case-by-case review is published entry by entry, with links to the opinions, so the analysis can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Duplicates. Morris v. Wroble and Morris v. Morris are the same Merry Morris dispute. In re Brooks duplicates Sattin v. Brooks. On the chart, each pair appears under the same category — Contempt of Court and Bankruptcy Fraud respectively. Two disputes, four entries.

Eight entries with no foreign asset protection trust in them. SEC v. Cook concerned money in offshore bank accounts and entities the defendant controlled personally — not a trust with an independent trustee. Chadwick v. Green involved no trust at all. In FTC v. Fortuna Alliance the funds were corporate money in an offshore bank account in the company's own name. U.S. v. Plath involved no offshore asset protection trust. The Jerome Schneider matter concerned sham banks. In re Omegas Group is a constructive-trust dispute — and was reversed by the Sixth Circuit. In re Cyr concerned a domestic Texas trust created by the debtor's in-laws. In Fortney v. Kuipers the transfers were domestic.

Three of those carried descriptions the decisions do not support. The chart's own one-line entry for SEC v. Cook says the settlor lost control of his offshore trust assets, when there was no trust. Its entry for In re Cyr describes offshore trust transfers, when the trust was domestic. Its entry for Fortney v. Kuipers says assets were moved offshore, when the transfers were domestic.

Two could not be located at all. In re Steering Committee and In re Tinsley, despite extensive research. We have not written about them, because writing about a decision you cannot read is the problem, not the solution.

And four are cases where the offshore structure worked. In BB&T v. Hamilton Greens the court held a hearing and denied contempt, finding the debtor could not compel the foreign trustee. In FDIC v. Lewis the court denied repatriation and left the trust intact. In In re Colburn the court found the trust's assets were not proven to be property of the estate. In Riechers the court accepted the Cook Islands trust as legitimate and disclaimed jurisdiction over its corpus. Four wins for the structure, filed under failures.

The number kept shrinking

This is the part that matters most, because it is a pattern rather than a single error.

45 became 21. After the flaws were set out, the list was reduced to 21 cases — published as "Failed FAPT #21." More than half of the original list simply disappeared. No correction accompanied it, and no explanation of which entries were withdrawn or why.

21 became someone else's homework. On 10 August 2026 the chart came down. The same day, readers were directed to three articles by other authors — McCullough Law, Derren Joseph / HTJ Tax, and Paul Deloughery / Sudden Wealth Protection Law. We redlined all three line by line and published the markups.

One of those articles is described as 28 failed foreign trusts. Click through and it identifies nine cases — and not one of them is stated to involve a foreign asset protection trust. Where the other nineteen are is question 8.

And then it became one case. Asked to name a single decision in which a properly formed trust — independent trustee, funded before any claim arose, settlor not in control — failed on the merits, the answer offered was FTC v. Affordable Media, the Anderson case. That decision is on our own register, and it is worth understanding exactly what it holds: the settlors were their own trust protectors, held the power to force repatriation, had already pulled over a million dollars out, and tried to resign as protectors only after the FTC identified the role. It is a case about a settlor who kept control. It says nothing about whether an offshore barrier holds when the settlor does not, and — being a Cook Islands trust case — it cannot demonstrate a domestic trust failure either.

A proposition supported by 45 cases, then 21, then three other people's articles, then one case that does not support it, was not a proposition established by counting.

His own account of the chart

Two statements, in his own words, four days apart in the record.

On or about 8 August 2026: "Those 45 cases came from multiple sources. I agree that some of them aren't actual trust cases. I haven't read them all."

But on 18 November 2025, replying to written notice the same day it was sent: "I don't believe that anything I say or write is misleading. I am not misrepresenting anything by listing the cases where FAPTs didn't work."

Between those two dates the list was republished in January, March and May 2026. It came down on 10 August 2026. The post carrying the comments that identified the errors was later deleted. Nobody who relied on the chart during those eight months appears to have been told that some entries do not belong.

That sequence is question 6, and it is the one we would most like answered.

The awards that a chatbot conferred

Two of the recognition banners on his homepage are not recognitions. Each opens a PDF that is a transcript of a ChatGPT conversation with an anonymous user — including one asserting the title "Most Influential Asset Protection Attorney."

The transcript's own opening line says there is no single most influential asset protection attorney. On the measure the same document calls "Impact on Case Law (what actually holds up in court)," it ranks him fourth of six. The banners sit interleaved with five genuine honors, styled identically.

The full analysis, with the screenshot, is in when a chatbot confers the award.

The structure being recommended instead

The alternative on offer is the domestic asset protection trust, and specifically the Hybrid DAPT — a design in which the settlor is not an initial beneficiary but can be added later by an independent party.

It has been described as undefeated. That invites a simple follow-up: how many reported decisions have tested one? An untested structure and a proven one are not the same claim, and "no cases against it" is what you would expect of a technique too new and too rarely litigated to have generated any.

More importantly, one fact does not change with drafting quality. Ask it directly: if a U.S. court orders the trustee of a Nevada DAPT to turn over the assets, does the trustee comply, or is the trustee prohibited by law from complying? A domestic trustee sits inside the court's contempt power and complies. That is the whole distinction, and it is jurisdictional rather than a matter of how well the deed is written.

Three further constraints apply regardless: fraudulent-transfer law reaches transfers intended to hinder or delay creditors; federal bankruptcy law reaches self-settled trusts on a ten-year lookback under 11 U.S.C. § 548(e); and a non-DAPT home state may decline to honour another state's protective statute on public-policy grounds.

Our side-by-side of what the court record actually shows for both structures is at APT Facts.

Disclosure, and the offer to appear

Disclosure. Blake Harris discloses his interest in Atlas Trust Company on this website, on LinkedIn, and publicly, because a reader weighing a recommendation is entitled to know what the person making it stands to gain. Question 38 asks the same of him: whether he or any family member holds a financial interest in a Nevada trust company. It is a question, not an assertion — we do not know the answer, and the answer may well be none.

The offer. Blake Harris has offered to appear jointly, on any platform, at a time of his choosing, to discuss the case law. The offer stands and is open-ended. It has not been taken up.

The form of the reply. Rather than answer in the comments where the errors were identified, the post was captured and answered on his own page. Much of the recent commentary has addressed Blake Harris personally rather than the decisions. Question 41 asks whether he would confine the exchange to the case law. We would prefer that, and we will hold to it from our side regardless.

The 41 questions

Sent on behalf of Blake Harris, Esq. and Jeffrey Verdon, Esq. Unanswered as of publication. Reproduced in full so that our summary of them cannot be the only version available.

The Ten

1. Do you still hold the position that foreign asset protection trusts fail? If so, name one case you have personally read in which a properly formed trust — independent trustee, funded before any claim arose, settlor not in control — failed on the merits. Not a contempt sanction against a settlor who retained control, and not a case with no trust in it.
2. On the 45 FAPT list, Morris v. Wroble duplicates Morris v. Morris, the same Merry Morris dispute, and In re Brooks duplicates Sattin v. Brooks. Why were these counted as four cases rather than two?
3. The following entries on the list involve no foreign asset protection trust: SEC v. Cook, In re Cyr, Fortney v. Kuipers, Chadwick v. Green, FTC v. Fortuna Alliance, U.S. v. Plath, the Jerome Schneider matter, and In re Omegas Group. In three of them, your chart's own one-line description states facts the decision does not contain: your entry for SEC v. Cook says the settlor lost control of his offshore trust assets, when there was no trust; your entry for In re Cyr describes offshore trust transfers, when the trust was a domestic Texas trust created by the debtor's in-laws; your entry for Fortney v. Kuipers says assets were moved offshore, when the transfers were domestic. What was the basis for including these on a list of foreign asset protection trust failures?
4. Four entries are cases in which the foreign structure was tested and held up. In BB&T v. Hamilton Greens, the court held a hearing and denied contempt, finding that the debtor could not compel the foreign trustee. In FDIC v. Lewis, the court denied repatriation and left the trust intact. In In re Colburn the court found the trust's assets were not proven to be property of the estate. In Riechers the court accepted the Cook Islands trust as legitimate and disclaimed jurisdiction over its corpus. On what basis were these described as failures?
5. After Mr. Harris illustrated the flaws in your "45 Cases Gone Wrong" list, you reduced the list from 45 cases to 21 cases ("Failed FAPT #21"). In other words, more than half of your original list simply disappeared. What happened to those cases? What changed in your analysis? Which cases did you determine no longer supported your position, and why?
6. On or about August 8, 2026 you wrote: "Those 45 cases came from multiple sources. I agree that some of them aren't actual trust cases. I haven't read them all." You removed the chart on August 10. In your November 18, 2025 email, however, you wrote: "I don't believe that anything I say or write is misleading. I am not misrepresenting anything by listing the cases where FAPTs didn't work." Do you still hold that position today? If so, what prompted the removal of the chart? Why did it remain published between Mr. Harris's November 18, 2025 notice and that date? And why do references to the list remain on your profile today?
7. On the day you removed the chart you directed readers to articles by McCullough Law, Derren Joseph / HTJ Tax, and Paul Deloughery / Sudden Wealth Protection Law. Before doing so, had you read the decisions those articles cite? Blake Harris Law has redlined all three line by line and published the markups. Do you accept that a lawyer is responsible for the accuracy of what he disseminates to the public, whether he wrote it himself or directed readers to someone else's work?
8. The Deloughery article is described as a list of 28 failed foreign asset protection trusts. Blake Harris Law's review finds that the article identifies nine cases, none of which is stated to involve a foreign asset protection trust. What accounts for the difference?
9. Do you still hold the position that domestic asset protection trusts are the safer choice? You have written that Hybrid DAPTs are undefeated. How many reported decisions have tested one? And if a U.S. court orders the trustee of a Nevada DAPT to turn over the assets, does the trustee comply, or is the trustee prohibited by law from complying?
10. Mr. Harris gave you notice that he would file a bar complaint if the inaccuracies were not corrected. His later communication asked nothing of you; it stated that the complaint was proceeding. You described that communication as a threat. What, specifically, was the threat, and what, specifically, was demanded of you?

On the composition of the list

11. In re Steering Committee and In re Tinsley could not be located by Blake Harris Law despite extensive research. Can you provide the citations?
12. Setting aside the duplicates, the entries that cannot be located, the eight involving no foreign trust and the four in which the structure held, how many of the forty-five remain?
13. When you assembled the chart, what was your process for verifying each entry against the decision?
14. Which sources did the entries come from?
15. In re Omegas Group was reversed by the Sixth Circuit. Was that reflected in your entry?

On contempt and what it establishes

16. A contempt order addresses the debtor's conduct and credibility. It does not establish that a foreign trustee was compelled to distribute or that the corpus was reached. Do you accept that distinction?
17. In FTC v. Affordable Media, the settlors were their own trust protectors with the power to force repatriation, had already withdrawn funds, and sought to resign as protectors only after the FTC identified the role. Does that decision speak to jurisdiction or to retained control?
18. In In re Lawrence, the trust was funded roughly two months before an anticipated $20.4M arbitration award, and the settlor retained powers to appoint trustees and to exclude and reinstate beneficiaries. Which of those facts concerns the jurisdiction rather than the drafting?
19. In SEC v. Bilzerian, the contempt was for refusing a sworn accounting and the only asset reached was U.S.-situs real estate. Was the offshore corpus ever reached?
20. In Eulich v. U.S., the debtor produced the documents and was purged of contempt. Were assets ever repatriated?
21. In Barbee v. Goldstein, the trustee and protector consented to winding up the trust. Was the offshore barrier tested on its own terms?
22. In SEC v. Solow, the Cook Islands trust was settled by his wife and never tested; the contempt addressed his post-verdict transfers to her. What does that establish about foreign trusts?
23. In FTC v. AmeriDebt, the trusts were created within two months of civil investigative demands and the contempt was for concealing other assets. The same question applies.

On category

24. The divorce cases on the list — Riechers, Westrate, Breitenstine, Marriage of Harnack — are marital property divisions with remedies against a spouse personally. Did any of those courts bind a foreign trustee?
25. The bankruptcy cases — Brennan, Colburn, Portnoy — turn on disclosure misconduct. Is a denial of discharge for false oaths a finding concerning a trust?
26. Post-claim and post-judgment transfers are vulnerable whether the recipient is an LLC, a spouse, a domestic trust or a foreign trust. What do the fraudulent transfer entries establish about foreign jurisdictions specifically?
27. The tax and criminal matters — Thompson, Butselaar, Schneider — are prosecutions involving concealment structures. What do they tell a lawful planner about a properly formed trust?
28. In a March 2026 post you agreed that most of the cases are bad facts cases. If the outcome turns on the debtor's conduct, what does the case establish about the offshore trust itself?

On your own published materials

29. Your March 2026 infographic presents eleven decisions as debtors who chose jail. One of the eleven is Chadwick v. Green, which involved no offshore trust. What was the basis for its inclusion in your list?
30. The same infographic's caption for Eulich v. U.S. states that the debtor was threatened with jail until documents were produced. How does that caption support the heading?
31. You have written that there are only two possible best asset protection techniques. What case law establishes that?
32. Your published case-law criticism has been directed at foreign structures rather than at the domestic structures you recommend. What accounts for that?

On the record since November 2025

33. You were given written notice on November 18, 2025 and replied the same day declining to correct the list. You then published the list again in January, March and May 2026. What changed between the notice and those posts?
34. The post carrying the comments that identified the errors was subsequently deleted. What was the reason?
35. The chart circulated for roughly eight months. Was anyone who relied on it notified that some entries do not belong?

On public statements

36. Your website presents a "Most Influential Asset Protection Attorney" honor. The document identifies itself as a conversation between ChatGPT and Anonymous. It cannot be reproduced, and the same conversation opens by stating that there is no single most influential asset protection attorney and ranks you fourth of six on impact on case law. What is the basis for presenting it as an honor?
37. You have written publicly that there is a great deal of intentional misrepresentation of case law in this field. Which publications did you have in mind?

On disclosure

38. Do you or any family member hold a financial interest in a Nevada trust company? Mr. Harris discloses his interest in Atlas Trust Company on his website, on LinkedIn, and publicly.

On engagement

39. Mr. Harris has offered to appear jointly with you, on any platform, at a time of your choosing. Under what conditions would you accept?
40. Rather than respond in the comments on Mr. Harris's post, you captured the post and responded on your own page. What informed that choice?
41. Much of your recent commentary has addressed Mr. Harris personally rather than the decisions. Would you be willing to confine the exchange to the case law?

The bottom line

None of this is a claim that offshore trusts cannot fail. They can, and our own case register publishes the decisions that went badly, including the ones that went badly for our side of the argument. That is the point of keeping a register rather than a chart.

What the record does not contain is a reported decision in which a properly formed, timely funded foreign trust with an independent trustee — where the settlor was not in control — was defeated on the merits. That is a bounded statement about the decisions our attorneys have read. It is not a guarantee, and it is not a prediction about anyone's case.

If you are choosing a structure, do not take either side's count. Ask for the citations, read the decisions, and ask what the trustee does when a U.S. court gives an order. Those three steps settle more than any list will.

The questions above remain open. If they are answered, we will publish the answers here in full, unedited.

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Fair-report note. This page discusses published materials and identified court decisions, and quotes correspondence. Statements attributed to Mr. Oshins are quoted from his own published posts and emails, with dates; dated copies are held on file. The bar complaint referred to is an allegation and not a finding, and no disciplinary determination has been made against anyone. Blake Harris Law competes with Mr. Oshins's firm and discloses Blake Harris's interest in Atlas Trust Company. Question 38 asks about a possible financial interest; it is a question, and no such interest is asserted or known. We will correct any factual error on this page promptly — write to us and we will publish the correction.