Alec Baldwin looks defeated as he faces criminal charges over fatal on-set shooting and offloads $29million Hamptons home to ‘shield his assets’ and ‘protect himself’ from looming legal bills
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Alec Baldwin, who is already racking up hefty legal bills employing topflight attorneys to defend him against lawsuits, just listed the home in Amagansett – a tony hamlet in the town of East Hampton – last week, attempting to offload the property as one of the most expensive listings in the area.
Adam Bailey, a Manhattan real estate lawyer who’s met Baldwin in the Hamptons, told DailyMail.com that Baldwin’s real strategy will reveal itself after the property’s sale, when he decides where to plant the windfall. The lawyer said it’s possible he could protect assets by placing them in an irrevocable trust, or by moving to a state like Florida.
‘We don’t have Florida’s laws where your property is protected if you are sued,’ Bailey told DailyMail.com. ‘If you are sued in New York, your entire property could be taken away.’
But he claimed Baldwin might also be tempted to place millions into a trust for his children – he is father to model Ireland Baldwin from his marriage to Kim Basinger and has seven children with second wife Hilaria Baldwin.
‘The smartest thing to do may be to create an irrevocable trust to avoid creditors who would go after him, and put it in the names of his children who he likes,’ Bailey said.
But Robert Steele said it’s probably too late to consider an irrevocable trust.
‘If you transfer assets to a trust and there’s a pending lawsuit against you, they’re going to go after that,’ Steele said. ‘It’s called a fraudulent conveyance. The horse has left the barn on that one. It doesn’t protect assets from someone who’s already knocking on the door.’
It’s also possible that Baldwin has, in fact, just soured on New York. In February, he purchased a 50-acre farmhouse in Arlington, Vermont, then in July dumped his lake house upstate. Hi only other property is his penthouse in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan.
‘Maybe it’s not just about running from these lawsuits, and he wants a change in life, especially at a time when a record number of New Yorkers are moving,’ Bailey said. ‘He may want to go to a place where they’re not talking about him or recognizing him everywhere he goes.
‘One of the things Vermont is known for is that they don’t bother you.’
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