EFTA00858667.pdf

From: Valeria Chomsky To: "Jeffrey E." <jeevacation@gmad.com> Subject: Fwd: Fwd: Response to your letter - Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2018 16:10:13 +0000 The latest from the children. Forwarded message From: Noam Chomsky < Date: Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 1:07 AM Subject: Re: Fwd: Res onse to our letter To: Diana Chomsky Cc: Avi Chomsky , Harry Chomsky Puzzled. You say there are deep disagreements, and that we can't make any progress by email or telephone. Do you have some other suggestion? It would help if you would tell me what the disagreements are. I don't understand the reference to our experiences trying to discuss these issues. I know of no such experiences. Rather, I have repeatedly provided detailed accounts to which you have not responded. You wrote me your version of matters and I responded in detail showing that it is in part simply mistaken, and in part appears to adopt an assumption about the marital trust that Max offered, based on legalistic chicanery that I described, and that could not possibly have occurred to Mommoy and me (or Eric). I've asked you several times whether you agree with this interpretation, but you haven't answered. Unless you respond to this, I cannot understand why you have concluded that I cannot proceed as I have before, without discussion, to select a trustee for this trust. Where matters now stand, then, is that I have responded specifically, point by point, to your version and you have not responded. Further, I have written to you detailed accounts to which you have not responded. And you haven't answered the one outstanding question. I do not understand, then, what the disagreements are. Unless you can tell me what they are, it is correct that we cannot make any progress. If there's something that you are not telling me, I wish you would. I do not see any disagreement other than your statement that there are deep disagreements. No need to say how profoundly disturbing this is, even more so that you see the disagreements that you feel exist -- but cannot describe to me -- are irresoluble. D On Fri, Mar 16, 2018 at 3:15 PM, Diana Chomsky > wrote: Dear Doddoy, We're sorry to hear that you haven't considered the trustee candidates we proposed. We do not accept your counter- proposal that Max step down and then you choose the new trustee. For one thing, if there is going to be a new trustee, it will have to be somebody we are all four comfortable with. We will need some time to figure out if we still see a viable path toward replacing Max. We realize there are a lot of other issues you've brought up, some of which involve serious and deep disagreements EFTA00858667 between you and us. Unfortunately, our experiences trying to discuss those issues with you have convinced us that we can't make any progress by email or telephone, so we're not going to respond here. Love, Avi, Diane and Harry From: Noam Chars To. Diana Chomsk Cc: Avi Chomsky . Harry Chomsky Date: 10/03/2018 Subject: Re: Fwd: Response to your letter Just back from some days away, including a talk in Oakland, at MECA. We spent some time with Amy and Alex, who visited us at our hotel. Even went to visit Alex's school. Amy told us that Alex came to the talk and stayed through. She said that Harry, Inti and his friend, and some others were there, but I couldn't see anyone in the audience (lights were too bright) and no one came up afterwards, a little to my surprise. We spent most of the day at the Oakland airport. Alex had written to me that Sandi was pregnant, but I didn't know whether to believe it. Amy confirmed it, and said she would have the baby in Japan. Very welcome news. About your letter, it's perfectly true that this controversy, which I do not understand, is very painful. And I'd very much like to see it resolved. It is the one blight on my current life, and an extremely severe one. I'd of course like to end the interchange, but it can't really be ended in a satisfactory way by just sweeping the issues -- whatever they are, I don't understand them -- under the rug. I can't help supposing that there is something that you are not telling me, and it's important that I know what it is. What you have written can't be the basis for problems, whatever they are, for reasons I've explained in detail. I've informed you in great detail, and fully accurately, about what has been going on -- and as I mentioned, there is further serious malfeasance that you'll find out about in due course. But that is all under control now, and there is no reason that I can see for you to have the concerns that you expressed in your previous, as I already explained. If there is some other reason, you really should tell me about it. One particular matter that I wrote you about remains a matter of serious concern to me. I described Max's interpretation of the marital trust, based on unpleasant legalistic chicanery. To repeat the main points, Eric set up the Trust in Mommoy's name for estate purposes. Trust law requires that the funds first pass through a Carol Chomsky Revocable Trust, then be transferred to the Marital Trust, where, of course, it is intended for the survivor. Seizing on this technicality, Max contrived a story about our dividing up our resources, with me responsible for my portion, and Carol responsible for her portion and for the children. This mad idea of course never occurred either to us, or to Eric. We of course took for granted that the resources are ours and would be available to the survivor, and that concern for the children was a joint decision. How could it be otherwise? That's why we set aside substantial resources for you: Trusts, educational Trusts, copyrights, houses, almost my entire pension. The way Mommoy and I acted -- completely different from Max's surreal construction — is completely normal. Hard for me to see why any question might arise about it. The case of my father, for example, which I've described to you several times. That's why, for example, I have always selected the Trustees, just as Mommoy would have done had she been the survivor. Rather reluctantly, I asked you how you felt about Max's construction. Hard for me to believe that you think it is remotely credible, but if so, I should know. On the matter of the Trustee, fine to discuss it if you like, but it seems to me straightforward. As always before, I should select a Trustee who I think is trustworthy. I never discussed the matter with you (or anyone) before, but will do so now if you prefer. Obviously, after all that has happened, I haven't looked into Max's candidates. The process seems to me simple: request that Max resign, and then, as before, I'll select a Trustee. If there is any other issue, I don't know what it is. And this one seems to me straightforward. EFTA00858668 On Mon, Mar 5, 2018 at 8:51 PM, Diana Chomsky wrote: Dear Doddoy, Thanks for your detailed and heartfelt reply. You've made it really clear how damaging it is to all of us to continue to pursue this conversation. We completely share your wish to be able to get back to the family relations that we also have treasured all these years, and as we've said, we want you to be happy and relaxed. We don't mean to ignore your points—we've read and thought deeply about every one of them. But we take to heart your words that you really want to end this interchange. We'd be willing to drop it at this point. On the other hand, you say you want something more: to replace Max as trustee. Working that out with us will require some more conversation—maybe just a lithe bit, though. Can you start by telling us the status of the process already underway? Have you had a chance to look at the list of candidates that we proposed in January? Love, Avi, Diane and Harry From: Noam Chomsa To: Diana Chomsky . Avi Chomsky , Harry Chomsky Date: 01/03/2018 12:58 Subject: Fwd: Response to your letter I've withheld writing because it is, frankly, not easy. The concerns you express about my life are completely groundless. There is in fact one problem in my life, one and only one: your insistence on pursuing this matter instead of resolving it easily, as I have suggested. The one and only problem. Furthermore, your picture of what happened in the past, whatever its source, is almost completely false. I've written to you in detail about what did happen. You haven't yet responded, simply ignoring the detailed account I gave. I don't understand that. I'll go through it again and hope that this will finish the matter. Furthermore, you will find in due course that there has been serious wrongdoing, much more than I told you about in the letters I have sent before, some repeated below. Easier to add comments below. I also think it would be useful to make more explicit comments about your earlier letter, and a few other things. First, an area of agreement. Just as you are disturbed, similarly all of this is disturbing to me, extremely so. It's the one seriously -- veiy seriously -- dark spot on the new lives that Valeria and I are shaping for ourselves, and I would therefore like to get it over with and resolved as soon as possible. As I wrote, I cannot understand why you are bringing any of these things up, and I think it would be very good to make everything clear, and keep nothing hidden or implicit. Second, it's clear that we are not communicating. The reason is clear: I write you long and detailed letters explaining the facts, and you completely ignore the letters, not responding to anything I wrote. Not once. I presume that includes the letter I wrote about my father, which you ignored, along with all the others. When I ask specific questions, you do not respond. I've repeatedly asked you for the sources of your beliefs, but you have never told me, so I can only guess. To take the most recent case, I have asked several times where you received the information about the sale of our Cambridge apartment (incorrect information, as I wrote) and the purchase of our Tucson house -- and also, why you even wanted to look into the matter, which, frankly, seems to me very strange. Then come the areas of disagreement, which I hope we can iron out quickly and expeditiously so that we can EFTA00858669 pick up the warm and close relations that we always had, and that I'd always treasured. More below, interspersed in your last letter D On Tue, Feb 6, 2018 at 9:16 AM, Diana Chomsky Dear Doddoy, c > wrote: We really hesitated to write our long letter to you last month. We only finally decided to write it because you insisted so many times that we do so. We think, and have thought for a long time, that we need to sit down face-to-face and work through our very substantial differences with you in how we understand your estate plan, financial history, and current situation. But after you asked us so many times in December to discuss it by e-mail, we decided to give that a try. We definitely didn't intend to be legalistic and adversarial, and we really regret that that's how you found our writing. We meant our letter as a heartfelt explanation of our perspective on the issues and how we want to help you understand the problem and fix it. But it doesn't sound like you've understood what we were trying to explain and express. This strongly confirms our feeling that e-mail is not a useful way for us to communicate about these issues. I understood very well, and responded, pointing out that the information you have received from some source — which you do not identify, despite repeated requests — is flatly wrong. In the letter I wrote to you, to which this one was supposed to be a response (while avoiding everything I wrote), I already had explained in some detail why your picture is incorrect, throughout. I'm sorry that you ignored the letter, but I will repeat the main points below. If you want to sit down face-to-face, OK, though I think a conference call would make more sense. Before going on, I frankly cannot comprehend why you think this discussion -- in which I respond to you point by point and you ignore everything I write — is necessary or even appropriate. I can appreciate your being concerned about my life, just as I'm concerned about yours. I'd be amazed if it were otherwise. That's natural in a close-knit family. Over the years, I've often been seriously concerned about the decisions and choices all of you have made, which sometimes seemed questionable or mistaken to me (Mommoy even more so, when she was alive and well). But neither she nor I ever ever felt that we had a right to interfere or to supervise. For example, I never would have dreamed of asking you for financial statements, or even suggested that we discuss these matters. I'd have been happy to do so if you'd asked, but if not, it's your decisions and my role is only to be supportive — as I have been, in many ways that you know and I need not review. And also by setting aside ample funds over the years to ensure that you and your children will be well provided for: that includes the trusts of which you are beneficiaries, two houses, almost all of my pension, educational Trusts for grandchildren, and lots of funding along the way for all sorts of purposes. I don't understand why you think it is any different in the present case, and I think it would be a good idea for you to explain, so that we can clear the air. On a personal level, we are heartbroken to feel that we are kept at such a distance from you in your new life. We were thrilled to learn that you had found a new partner, but we were grieved when we began to realize that this meant we are rarely able to see you. It didn't mean that at all. Of course, my life became different, and Valeria and I had many things to do to put our new life together. But we took time off from the conference in Mexico to see you, with much pleasure; a few months before that we went to Wellfleet to spend some time with you. Harry, Amy and Alex have visited. I kept seeing Avi whenever we could arrange it, sometimes with Valeria, usually alone. We began spending winters in Tucson, now moved. I certainly don't want any distance, and am just as heartbroken as you to think that there might be. Even email and telephone communication has become much more limited. EFTA00858670 If so, I'm not aware of it. Until the last few weeks I spoke to Harry weekly until he stopped calling. I very rarely had email correspondence with Diane in the past, more often with Guillermo, which has continued. Since Avi was close by, email was always limited. Otherwise we rarely used the phone. We have also been increasingly distressed to see that instead of feeling happy and relaxed, you feel impoverished. You misunderstand, totally and completely, so much so that I cannot comprehend where you are getting your information from. Certainly nothing in my letters or anything of said. Again, apart from this continued interchange, which I don't understand, I'm happy and relaxed, much more so than during the years before Valeria and I came together. As for "impoverishment," when I began to look into how my affairs had been handled, I discovered that I was indeed facing financial problems, though far from impoverished. I've explained before in letters that you have ignored, so I will repeat briefly again. I discovers that I have almost no pension: years ago it was turned into trusts of which you are the beneficiaries, and the very small pension I receive (less than Social Security) ends at my death, leaving nothing to Valeria. I discovered that I was living on an IRA that was being rapidly depleted. To run through the arithmetic again, there is a mandatory withdrawal of about $300,000. Half of that was being distributed to 10 family members. The other half was going to payment of taxes and management fees on the entire estate. In addition, close to $100,000 was going to expenses for Wellfleet and Alex's medical expenses. Hence before I withdrew a penny for daily life, I was already far over the mandatory withdrawal, which, by law, imposes exorbitant taxes that I also had to pay. You can work out the arithmetic for yourselves. And you will recall I'm sure that when I requested that some of the taxes be covered by the marital trust (which, by rights, I should have full access to), Harry refused unless I submitted to extensive and highly intrusive financial analysis, which of course I refused to do on principle. There was never a request for such financial analysis when distributions were made to family, or when Max distributed funds to family from the marital trust, or for any other gifts over the years. And I saw, and see, no reason why I should be subjected to this humiliating demand. In addition, as I've repeatedly explained, I bought the apartment in the Cambridge co-op on the erroneous assumption that the cost would be covered completely and quickly by the sale of the Lexington house. If I'd paid attention instead of just trusting advisers, I would have known, as they did, that I did not own the Lexington house and that the profits would go to you, so I was buying an expensive apartment in a co-op with no assets at all, a crazy decision. As I wrote, I agreed to the surreal idea of borrowing money from within the family (with interest) only on the false assumption that the loan would be for a few weeks or months, hence meaningless. That's the "impoverishment," and I've now pretty much overcome what had been done. All that keeps me from being "happy and relaxed" is your continued insistence on pursuing these matters, which, again, I don't understand. You have even felt the need to hire multiple lawyers to threaten people who you had trusted for years, and who we believe have continued to do their utmost to act in your best interest and to help you navigate your new financial situation. Again, I'd be interested in knowing your source for these claims. You're quite right that for years I had (quite mistakenly) trusted people who, it turned out, had been making decisions, such as those I have again reviewed, that were quite harmful to me. It is hard for me to comprehend how you think they would act in my best interest and help me navigate the financial difficulties that they had created in the light of what I have explained to you, repeatedly. And as I've written, that's only a part of it. I mentioned the tens of thousands of EFTA00858671 dollars we paid Max for such things as a will so outlandish that we had to trash it at once (see my last letter). And there is quite a lot more. I don't understand why you completely disregard the detailed and fully accurate information I have once again reviewed, and choose instead to rely on what you are told by others. And as I mentioned above, there has been serious wrongdoing, now coming to light, which you will find out about in due course. We have in fact found your letters over the past year increasingly alarming. If we felt that you were stable and content in your new life, we would probably accept the distance that has been created. But your statements, in person, and in your letters, do not give us the impression that you feel stable and content. I have explained before, and will repeat again, that I am very stable and content in my new life, and looking fonvard to the peace, tranquillity, work and life conditions that I think I have a right to enjoy after many years of hard work and with ample attention to caring for the needs of my children. There was a financial problem caused by extremely harmful decisions of advisers that I had trusted, but that's now pretty much overcome. What's causing extreme distress is your insistence, which I don't understand, on pursuing the matters we are now again discussing. One matter that remains is that marital trust. I explained what has been happening in a letter that you seem again to have ignored, and won't repeat the full details. In brief, Max has concocted an interpretation that is technically legal but that clearly makes no sense at all. It is based on the outlandish idea that Mommoy and I had decided to split our assets so that she would make decisions about allocation of her part and I would make decisions about allocation of my part. The idea is insane, and never occurred to either of us. Max's weird interpretation is based on a pure technicality: namely, in setting up the trust in M's name for tax purposes, the funds were first assigned to her revocable Trust and then to the Marital Trust. That Trust was, of course, intended for the use of the survivor — which is, for example, why I have always selected the Trustees without question or discussion, and should continue to do so, just as M would have done had she been the survivor, as we anticipated. Perhaps, though you haven't said so, you agree with Max, and want to ensure that the survivor (me) does not have access to the funds and that they should go to you in addition to those of which you are already the beneficiaries. And that I should not have the right to leave anything to Valeria. If that's the case which is hard for me to believe — I think it would be best to say so straight out. If it's anything else, I just don't understand your letter. We have begged you to meet with us with a mediator. We renew that request. A mediator is a person trained to help different parties communicate and understand each other. This is what we want. We do not want to watch you engage in expensive legal bathes, and we do not want to live in trepidation of the next angry and irrational email we might receive from you. You have received completely rational emails — which are sometimes annoyed, and for good reasons. I still am shocked at the refusal to pay part of the taxes without extensive financial scrutiny, particularly after the facts that I have again described. I don't know what you have heard about "expensive legal battles," but I strongly suspect that it is as mistaken as your beliefs about my financial situation. I'd be glad to meet, or more easily to have a collective phone call, but I cannot imagine why you want a mediator. If there are some issues, we can discuss them. In my mind at least, there is no adversarial conflict for which a mediator is in order. I do hope, again, that we can resolve this quickly. It is deeply disturbing, the one and only disturbing thing in my life. And unnecessary, unless you have something on your minds that you have not told me. A few more comments below. EFTA00858672 PS. About your earlier letter concerning the estate plan, though I responded explaining why you and Max are completely wrong about the Marital Trust, there are a few points I left out. One, I'm amazed, and not a little disturbed, that you have even looked into this in such extensive detail. These are matters I never paid any attention to until I started looking into my affairs and discovered what was being done by my advisers, as I've just one again described. I do not comprehend why you felt that you should undertake this inquiry — just it would have been unthinkable for me to have inquired into your affairs when you were making decisions I found questionable and was of course supporting them, financially and otherwise. But put that aside. The first sentence of your letter is Max's interpretation, which is flatly false, and surely ridiculous. We never thought of the crazy idea of setting up two separate Trusts, one to manage my "individual property," and the other for M to manage her "individual property." It amazes me that this idea could even occur to you. We had common property, not divided into mine and hers. Technically, almost all of it was my earnings, but it would never have occurred to us to regard that as my "individual property," or even to imagine separate "individual properties." Again, Eric suggested this pretense solelyfor tax purposes. We agreed, but the idea that you (and Max) express could never have occurred to us, and I find it hard to understand how it occurred to you. I have already reviewed the facts about the way the Marital Trust was established and the obvious intentions, so won't go through it again, but your account in the letter is entirely wrong, though it does exploit a legal technicality, and it's hard for me to imagine how this weird interpretation could even have occurred to you. Aside from many factual errors in your letter, which I won't review, I'm also amazed, and shocked, to read such statements as "Carol's intention to leave some money to your children." Carol's intention? Alone? Not my intention? Is this your conception of what our family life was? I hope not. In reality, neither of us had separate "intentions." We decided together how to ensure that the children and grandchildren would be very adequately cared for from my earnings of the years, and how the survivor would be as well. I've just explained, once again, why you are radically misled about what happened to my IRA under Max's and Bainco's supervision, until I started looking into it and ended the practices that were rapidly depleting it. You say that you learned about Valeria in 2013 — that is, when we met. It's quite true that I didn't consult lawyers or financial planners or Harry before we decided to get married, just as Carol and I didn't, just as none of you did. I don't frankly understand what you are thinking. You are, again, mistaken about the sale of the Lexington house. The facts are as I have repeatedly described. I surely would never have contemplated buying a Mem Drive apartment in a co-op with regular expenses and taking out a loan from a family trust had I not assumed that the loan would last until the sale of the Lexington house that would cover the costs of the new apartment. I've explained this over and over. I don't understand why I have to say it again, and why you simply ignore what I say — which is completely accurate. You report a visit by Harry and Max with an idea about using assets that you recount. I don't know where you got that from. Nothing like that happened. They did come with an outlandish proposal that I at once rejected. Max had once come to Lexington to tell me that I had such enormous assets that I EFTA00858673 would never have a financial problem. Later he changed his story, radically: I don't know why. I had a private visit with Max in my MIT office in which he explained that I'd have to sharply reduce my past lifestyle, sell the boat and other such assets, because of the way my estate had been arranged. That's the first I'd heard of any of this. At that point I began to look into what was going on and found what I've described to you in detail, repeatedly. You say that "as far as we know, no financial planning has occurred, despite the passage of a year and a half since Max and Harry understood we all agreed it needed to be done." That's the first I've heard that Max and all of you have been my supervisors. I had thought that Max was my lawyer and that you were my children. In fact, financial planning has now occurred, the first serious and careful planning since Eric Menouya, but it never occurred to me that I was supposed to be under the control of Max and Harry. You're right that I changed my relations with Anthony, as part of our financial planning. Again, it did not occur to me that this was anyone's business but mine. You can have your beliefs about the facts, but I have the facts available and feel I have the right to make such decisions without supervision, just as you do. You are quite right that I can repay the loan to the marital trust, even though the profits from sale of the apartment are considerably less than your sources told you. I won't comment further about this, but you might want to think about it. As for my lifestyle, for your information it is considerably reduced from what it used to be, though I don't understand why that is your business, any more than I inquire into your lifestyles or seek to supervise them. The "sudden and sustained increase in spending" is fully and completely explained by the practices I have once again reviewed to you. That's why the IRA was depleted. Now I have ended these practices and am no longer paying exorbitant fees to Max for such matters as the proposed will that I described to you. Your phrase "an independent Trustee, such as Max," is quite remarkable in the light of what I have told you, not least the legalistic chicanery about the Marital Trust. He's your lawyer, working for your benefit, which is what a lawyer is supposed to do I suppose. That explains the record I have described at length, repeatedly. But I have every right to select an independent and qualified Trustee, just as I selected the Trustees up until now, without question or discussion. I can only repeat what I said before. We surely should be concerned about one another. I've often been concerned about your decisions and choices, and felt that they were questionable or misguided. It never occurred to me that I should inquire into the details of your financial situation or your lifestyles or to supervise what you do. Rather, I just supported it, whatever my misgivings, financially and in other ways. Same with Mommoy when she was alive, and contrary, what you seem to believe (along with Max), we were a couple, making decisions jointly, not deciding separately how to allocate funds under her or my separate control, an idea so outlandish it never occurred to us, or to Eric, or to anyone until Max and you brought it up. I do hope we can end this quickly, and pick up our lives without this blight. One practical step that remains is for you to request Max to withdraw as trustee of the Marital Trusts, so that, as before, I can select the Trustee of my choice, someone I can regard as reliable and trustworthy. EFTA00858674 Love, Avi, Diane and Harry From: Noam Choms To: Avi Chomsky , Diana Chomsky 4 Harry Chomsky Date: 03/02/2018 . Subject: Response to your letter Still surprised that you had the financial information about the apartment and our Tucson house, which we never provided to anyone, because it's no one's business, just as no one knew or raised any questions about earlier cases of purchase and sale. However, whoever provided you with the information left a few things out, like payments to the cooperative and the costs of the sale. When these are taken into account, you'll find that what we received suffices to cover the costs of our purchase of the apartment, a bad mistake, as I've already explained, since we obviously couldn't afford it, not having the funds from the sale of the Lexington house, as I had expected. There is a little left over for a small mortgage on a much less expensive place that we can afford. In the cooperative there are retired professors, but they are people who have pensions and had property that they could sell to buy the apartment. I had neither, as you know. Again, I don't know why you brought this up at all, but more generally, don't understand why you are persisting with this correspondence. As I've written several times, and shouldn't have to say, I've worked hard all my life, set aside ample funds to ensure that my children and their families will be well taken care of, and think I have the right to spend my last years in peace and tranquility without being concerned with accounting for financial matters. I don't understand, but will respond to your letter. I'll also send a separate letter concerning some recent interchanges with Max, which you may or may or not have heard something about. I should say that your letter is not easy for me to read, and a response won't be easy to write, for reasons I've explained in earlier letters. In the first place, to repeat again, I'm amazed that we are having this correspondence at all, that we've wasted 5 minutes on this. I also continue to be perplexed about the difference of style: I write you personal letters, and when you respond to them (usually you don't, as in the present case), the letters read as though they are written by lawyers in an adversarial proceeding. On the matter of the loan to buy the Cambridge apartment, for example, I explained that the whole idea of a loan within a family seemed to me utterly surreal, and I agreed only because I assumed, mistakenly, that the loan was for a few weeks until the Lexington house would be sold and would cover the costs of the apartment. If I had been paying attention, I would have known that I didn't own the Lexington house. If I had had a lawyer and financial adviser who were concerned with my situation, they would have informed me that the Lexington house was not mine, and since I had no funds to pay for a new place to live, I couldn't afford to buy an apartment in Cambridge near Harvard Square, surely not a coop with continual fees. That's what I explained in my letter. Your response was a statement of the legal issues as you understood them and advice to have lawyers clarify the matter. Same now. I wrote you several long personal letters, and this is your first response. Virtually a legal document. And I have to say I'm surprised that you have the information you include, which happens to be incorrect in crucial respects as I explained in earlier letters and will repeat. In particular, your account of the sale of the Lexington house and the purchase of the apartment is incorrect, as EFTA00858675 I have just reviewed once again. The facts are as I have already described them, entirely unlike the story you present here, which I presume you received from Max and Sam. Some of your letter is correct. I did not consult with lawyers before we decided to many -- I won't comment further on this. And it is true that the earlier estate planning did not take into account that I might many, a fact that has been causing some remarkable actions. I won't comment on this either, but will simply add below a letter I wrote to you some time ago but never sent. You state, correctly, that it would be wrong for Valeria to end up as your tenant. But then right below you say that the preferred solution was for the apartment we bought to be in a trust of which you are the beneficiaries, which means that she would end up as your tenant. That aside, why should the apartment have been in a trust at all? As I wrote you several times, we are very happy together. Valeria gave up her family, friends, and a flourishing professional career to be with me — a very precious gift. I want to make sure that she is well taken care of when I die, not beholden to anyone, not anyone's tenant. About the "scam," yes, there is one, and I have described it to you several times. To repeat again: the mandatory annual withdrawal from the IRA is about $300,000, which certainly does sound like a lot of money, until we look at what was happening to it. About half went to distributions to the family. The remaining half was spent in taxes and management fees for the entire estate. Over and above this were the payments for Wellfleet and Alex's medical expenses, all drawn from the IRA in excess of the mandatory withdrawal and therefore subject to exorbitant taxes. That's before one cent was used for personal expenses. If I had had a lawyer/financial adviser, he would have informed me that this is going to quickly deplete the IRA. But I didn't. I finally learned about it and ended it. Same with the demand for financial analysis. When money from my IRA was being distributed to 10 family members, no one asked them to provide a financial analysis. Or in any other case, like distributions from the Marital Trust. The demand arises only when I request money (which I should have access to anyway) for the purpose of paying taxes that are exorbitant for the reasons I have just described again. You say that my expenditures have gone up since then. Since you seem to have gotten information about my expenses, could you explain how they went up? I can give you some hints. We were, for example, paying tens of thousands of dollars to Max for things like making a will, which, when he finally sent it to us, was so outlandish that we simply trashed it -- for example, with a demand that we list all of our tangible assets, including teaspoons and pillow cases, presumably to make sure that nothing would go to Valeria. And other such conditions. So yes, those were expenses. If you know of other ones, please let me know. You clearly trust Max and are accepting his version of events and circumstances rather than mine. That surprises me, but to repeat, I don't trust him at all, for good reasons, which I've explained repeatedly -- leaving out a fair amount. Could add more, but won't. To go back to the beginning, I find it difficult to understand why you are persisting in these inquiries. We are a family. We care for each other. I don't understand why you are doing this. D There are some other reasons why it looks simple to me, and I think it would be helpful to make them clear and open. Throughout this whole business, thoughts have been coming to my mind that I'm sure must have occurred to you too. Namely my own experiences. EFTA00858676 When my mother died, in 1972, my father was 78 years old, not a good time to be alone. Knew that well enough then, but it came home like a hammer blow when Mommoy was diagnosed in 2006 with incurable brain and lung cancer, and I was privately told by her physician that she had at most months to live -- never told her of course. I couldn't help realizing that if I had died before her, and she was alone, she would have had to be put in some facility where she would suffer and die soon in misery. Since I was there, I could take care of her at home and to the great surprise of her doctors, she had two years that were tolerable and sometimes very enjoyable even as she wasted away and reverted to infancy, and was able to pass away in peace, at home. i didn't think of all of that when my mother died, but I did understand enough to realize -- we all did -- that my father was facing a very difficult and dangerous period. We were therefore all delighted when, a year later, he met and married Ruth. They spent the rest of his life together, happy and secure, and he too was able to pass away at home, in peace, his wife taking care of him and his children and Judy nearby. We were, of course, very grateful that he had found Ruth, and very grateful to her. David and I owned the house, but of course we just gave it to her for the rest of her life, and for whatever she wanted to do with it. There was never a question, a problem, a concern. All entirely natural within a family, very simple. Like other cases I know of. D ----- Forwarded messa e From: Noam Chomsky Date: Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 6:27 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: Fwd: Marital Trusts To: Diana Chomsky Cc: Avi Chomsky , Harry Chomsky Received your letter, and will go through it carefully. But even on a quick reading there are things that surprise me. To mention just one example, I would be interested in knowing where you received the information about the sale of the apartment in Cambridge and the purchase of the house in Tucson. To clarify, Deborah is not Valeria's lawyer, she's mine and Valeria's lawyer. Max recognized that he had a conflict of interests, and recommended to me that I should have a different lawyer, so we arranged for Deborah and her firm to represent both of us. I can see that there are many other important things to discuss and clarify. D On Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 4:32 PM, Diana Chomsky < > wrote: Dear Doddoy, Please find attached a reply to your emails which we spoke with you about before Christmas. As we've said before, based on past experience we have a lot of doubts about how well an email exchange will work. We did attempt, a few months ago, to use email to address one small, concrete issue: the loan from the marital trust and its EFTA00858677 conditions and interest rate. We thought it would be simple to resolve our different understandings, but in the end our multiple communications—even including an explanatory memo from the lawyer who set up the loan—did not manage to clarify things at all. Nonetheless, since you've asked several times for an email exchange about the broader issues, we're willing to try. We know that what you asked for was for us to go through your detailed emails point by point and tell you what we disagree with and why. That isn't exactly what we've done here. Instead, this is our best attempt to explain the history and circumstances as we understand them. Why have we done this? For a number of reasons. We think that many of your underlying assumptions are far off from reality, and that your understanding of the past, the present and what we are saying about these financial issues is deeply distorted. We want to start by looking at the larger, long-term issues, where we feel you have simply rewritten history. The attached narrative is our best attempt to do this. Please keep in mind that it is based only on our memory and a handful of documents we've seen through the years. The numbers in particular are all rough approximations, since of course we don't have access to your legal and financial files. You may very well feel we're mistaken about some details. But in order to address those issues and come to an agreement on even the basic facts, we'd really like to meet face to face, with the help of the people who actually have the documents and the information to determine whether the things each of us believe are true or not. And, with a neutral mediator, who can ensure that we all are able to listen to and understand what the other parties are trying to say. Love, Avi, Diane and Harry From: Noam Chomsk To: Diana Chornsk Cc: Avi Chomsky Harry Chomsky Date: 20/1212017 1!. Subject: Re: Fwd: Fwd: Marital Trusts May be missing something. I don't see anything mentioned below It's a very troubling situation, as I've outlined, and I hope we can settle it quickly. I'd like to get back to my life and work without this constant dark cloud and continual aggravation. It's true that it looks simple to me, but I'll wait to hear from you. Soon I hope. D On Wed, Dec 20, 2017 at 10:01 AM, Diana Chomsky > wrote: Dear Doddoy, We recognize that you see a simple way forward — we should tell you by email what we disagree with in what you have outlined to us, and what our reasons are for disagreeing - but to us this does not seem so simple, for all the reasons we mentioned below. Thus we can't answer you right now, but we didn't want to just leave your email there without any reply. We know this isn't a real response, and we'll get back to you soon with something dearer. Love, Avi, Diane and Harry From: Noam Choms To: Diana Chornsk Cc: Avi Chomsky , Harry Chomsky Date: 16/12/2017 . Subject: Fwd: Fwd: Marital Trusts EFTA00858678 I'm sorry, but this is surreal. I have repatedly spelled out the circumstances in extensive detail. Your sole response has been that you disagree, without once saying what you disagree with or why. I have never denied anything you have tried to say, for the simple reason that you have never said anything that could either be affirmed or denied, only that you disagree with what I've spelled out but without any indication of what or why. In this letter, for the first time, you specifically address something I have written. You write: "We can tell from your tax requests that you have been spending many hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on personal expenses, even after having successfully eliminated the extra costs that you have mentioned as a drain on your resources (the Cape house, the gifts, Anthony's salary, etc)." What I wrote you however is quite different. To repeat: there is a mandatory withdrawal from the IRA. Half of that was distributed to children, grandchildren, and spouses. The other half was spent in taxes and management fees for the entire estate. Cape house, Alex's medical expenses and other gifts, Anthony's salary, etc., were from necessary withdrawals over and above the mandatory withdrawal, hence subject to exorbitant taxes, requiring additional withdrawal. That is before we even get to ordinary living expenses. The request had nothing at all to do with personal expenses, as you can see by just looking at my letters and running through the arithmetic. So the one case you now mention is flatly incorrect. But this tells us how to proceed: tell me explicitly what you have in mind, and then we can proceed in a reasonable fashion. There's a simple way out of this impasse -- not by setting up an adversary proceeding with a mediator, as you suggest, but by you telling me what you disagree with in what i have outlined to you and what your reasons are. You have not yet done that in a single letter. So, simply, why not do it right now, and then we can proceed. Again, I've repeatedly spelled out the circumstances in extensive detail. So, simply, tell me what you disagree with and why. No mediators are necessary, just a direct response. Or if you feel that you have already done so, then re-send the letter in which you responded to my detailed account, telling me what you disagree with and why. Meanwhile, while the impasse continues, I'm compelled to face constant aggravating and painful circumstances, not to speak of humiliating demands and by now significant costs. That can end if we simply resolve these matters quickly in a straightforward and simple way. I haven't responded to the last part of your letter because it doesn't relate to the matter at hand. I was referring to Max's radical shift in stand, not to how affairs were managed in the past. To repeat, when distributions were made to family from the IRA, and taxes and management fees for the entire estate were drawn from the IRA -- exhausting the mandatory withdrawal -- Max, my lawyer, raised no question about the financial circumstances of the beneficiaries, nor should he have done so. But when i am requesting tax payments from the marital trust that was set up for M and me and the survivor for our lifetimes, all of a sudden he is making exorbitant and humiliating demands. What you describe below has nothing to do with this simple matter. D Forwarded mess From: Diana Chomsky Date: Sat, Dec 16, 2017 at 8:37 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: Marital Trusts EFTA00858679 To: Noam Chomsky Cc: Avi Chomsky , Harry Chomsky Dear Doddoy, We've tried to talk to you about your financial situation several times over the past couple of years, in person, by phone, and by e-mail. The process has been extremely unpleasant for us, and we presume for you as well. More importantly, it has not led to any enlightenment on any of our parts. Much of what we've tried to say you have flatly denied; some of it we think you simply haven't understood. You seem absolutely convinced that your beliefs are correct and absolutely uninterested in trying to look at the situation in other ways, to the extent that you can't even remember these exchanges. Much of what you've said to us conflicts directly with our personal knowledge of your history and with legal and financial advice from every source we've heard from. So the conversations lead only to more stress and heartache. We are not willing to continue trying to discuss this with you unless something changes. One change would be to include a professional in the conversation who can resolve our differences in belief about basic facts. However, you have apparently decided that because you disapprove of some of the suggestions made by your former lawyer and financial managers — many of which were based on choices you and Mommoy had made previously — you will now not believe anything they tell you. That leaves us with no recourse to determine the truth about anything that happened between 2007 and 2016. We have su