Eminent counselor of law and longtime Rotarian, Jim Helms, presented the case of a greedy son, who tried to take his late father’s estate away from the other heirs.

Initially dressed in a judge’s robe and judge’s wig, Jim opened his presentation with a power point presentation about a case he tried and the research he put into it, to resolve it. He started by telling us about the Husband, who had two children with wife number One, one son he termed, the “Good Boy” and the other the “Bad Boy”. Husband divorced wife number One and married wife number two, who actually was the “other woman” and they were childless.

Husband died and Good Boy son presented Jim with a will, whereby one half of the estate would go to the surviving wife, and one fourth each to the two sons.

The next act in the drama was “The Death of A Salesman”. Husband died, he was buried and Jim starts to probate the will, except the The Plot Thickened”. Jim receives a call for a pompous, arrogant Beverly Hills attorney, who tells Jim there is another will and it leaves the entire estate to Bad Boy and the will was witnessed by a nice middle of the road couple. Good Boy, of course, was shocked and wanted Jim to look into this “spurious” will and get to the truth, because he believed Husband, father, would never have left Good Boy out of his will.

Jim started his investigation by contacting the two witnesses to the will and suspected something was fishy when the Beverly Hills lawyer and Bad Boy were there when he arrived. They said that Husband signed the will in their presence. Jim was skeptical, so he hired a handwriting expert to verify the signature. She said it’s Husband’ signature, but it’s not on the dotted line. Jim was suspicious, believing that the signature was faked.

Jim then talked to Husband’s mistress, who was now married. She said she found a specimen will in her husband’s car and gave it to Husband to copy and use for his will. The problem was that the questionable will was typed and Husband didn’t type. Then a rent check turned up made payable to a corporation for $5,000 and made payable the same day as the date of death. This was the “Smoking Gun.” It turned out the check was a forgery, so could the will have been a forgery also? Various clues came together, such as the witnessing couple were involved with the rent. The check was actually written three days after Husband’s death. Bad Boy used Husband’s credit card to take body to the town where the body was laid to rest and curiously, Bad Boy used the flowers from the funeral for the flowers at his wedding right after the funeral. Jim tried to settle, but Beverly Hills lawyer told him to fly a kite, so the case went to trial.

Smart Arcadia Attorney prevailed at trial. He got the second will kicked out and reinstated the first will. The story didn’t end there, Bad Boy was to inherit his one fourth of the estate, except—he assigned his interest in the proceeds to the Beverly Hills lawyer. So, Bad Boy got nothing, he had forged the second will, and fortunately for him, Good Boy decided not to press charges. So went the story.