A wealthy Manhattan landlord left $20 million to his two daughters — but they can collect only on his strict terms. 
 
 Daddy Dearest real estate millionaire Maurice Laboz, who died earlier this year, doled out early-bird bonuses to his girls in his will as long as they marry right, get good jobs and don’t even think about having kids out of wedlock. 
 
 The Laboz girls — Marlena, 21, and Victoria, 17 — are set to inherit $10 million apiece when they turn 35. But they can get their hands on some of the dough beforehand if they follow Daddy’s rules for the straight and narrow. For example: 
 
 Marlena will get $500,000 for tying the knot, but only if her husband signs a sworn statement promising to keep his hands off the cash. 
 
 She nets another $750,000 if she graduates “from an accredited university” and writes “100 words or less describing what she intends to do with the funds” — with the trustees appointed by her dad to oversee her money responsible for approving her essay. 
 
 Both daughters get a big incentive to earn decent salaries by 2020. Each young woman is guaranteed to receive an annual payout of three times the income listed on their personal federal tax return. In a not-so-subtle nod to the taxman, their checks will be cut every April 15. 
 
 If the daughters have kids and don’t work outside the house, the trustees will give them each 3 percent of the value of their trust every Jan. 1. There’s one catch: The money flows only for a “child born in wedlock.” 
 
 The sisters could earn the same amount being “a caregiver” to their mother, Ewa Laboz, 58, whom their father was in the middle of divorcing. She got nothing in the will and has indicated that she will contest it. 
 
 “It’s a way to control things from the grave,’’ said estate lawyer Jeffrey Barr, who is not involved in the case. “You don’t see a lot of it, but it happens. People do it because . . . they think it’s for the good of the children.’’ 
 
 Estate lawyer Oshrie Zak said the move is not surprising in this case. 
 
 “Accustomed to the control over others that their money affords them in life, the will is their last shot at controlling their loved ones,’’ he said of Laboz and other successful people. 
 
 Maurice Laboz signed the will in April 2014, about nine months before he died at age 77. He left behind a $37 million fortune. 
 
 He justified leaving his wife out of his will by citing a “prenuptial agreement, which limits her rights,” according to the document. 
 
 Ewa Laboz filed court papers last month contesting that, arguing she deserves a share of the pot because she was still married to her husband when he died. 
 
 The rest of Laboz’s fortune is set to go to charities, including The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and Meals on Wheels. ||||| Photograph courtesy Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office. 
 
 in·cest (ĭn'sěst') Sexual relations between family members or close relatives, including children related by adoption. Black’s Law Dictionary 776 (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added). 
 
 On Feb. 10, 2010, Palm Beach air-conditioning mogul John Goodman allegedly ran a stop sign. His Bentley convertible struck a Hyundai being driven by Scott Wilson, a 23-year-old civil engineer. Wilson’s car landed in a nearby canal where the young man drowned. The near-billionaire then fled the scene. Police say Goodman had a blood alcohol content of 0.177, twice the legal limit. Not surprisingly, Goodman is being sued by Wilson’s parents for a great deal of money. (He also faces criminal charges that could put him in jail for 30 years). 
 
 Fortunately for Goodman, he had set up a very large trust (currently worth “several hundred million dollars” according to Goodman’s attorney) years earlier for the benefit of his two children, with distributions to be disbursed when each child reached the age of 35. West Palm Beach Judge Glenn Kelley ruled early in the Goodman civil lawsuit that the jury could not be told of the large trust’s existence because it might encourage jurors to impose a larger verdict against Goodman, despite the fact that he, in theory, has no control over the trust. 
 
 
 
 But what about Goodman? If a jury verdict were to bankrupt him, would he be left penniless while his children continued to benefit richly from their trust income? Enter the shrewd estate planning attorney who recommended that the 48-year-old Goodman adopt his 42-year-old girlfriend, Heather Laruso Hutchins, thus making her a beneficiary of the trust that Wilson’s parents cannot mention or touch. (In this arrangement, Hutchins is the beneficiary to roughly $70 million, which she would presumably share with Goodman, her doting dad-slash-boyfriend.) Elegant. Brilliant. And actually not that uncommon, it turns out. 
 
 
 
 Believe it or not, there is a growing trend in this country of adopting one’s adult lover or spouse for various reasons: to better guarantee the adoptee’s right to inherit directly from the adoptor; to keep other relatives from having any standing to contest an estate plan; or, as in Goodman’s case, to add a spouse or lover to a class of trust beneficiaries, allowing the “child” to inherit from the “parent.” Courts around the country are struggling to figure out whether these adoptions should be upheld or not. 
 
 
 
 The Goodman case is similar to that of the now deceased Olive Watson, who adopted her lesbian lover, Patricia Spado, in 1991. Olive was 43 at the time; Patricia was 44. (Yes, you can adopt someone older than you!) They had been together for 14 years at the time of the adoption but, as these things often do, the relationship soured about a year later. Patricia received $500,000 in cash from Olive but that was just the beginning. You see, Olive was the granddaughter of IBM co-founder Tom Watson, and daughter of Tom Watson, Jr., who took over the reins of IBM from his father in 1952. Watson Jr. established a hefty trust fund for the benefit of his children and grandchildren. And when Watson Jr. and his wife died, each of his grandchildren received large trust payments—estimated to be between $5 and $15 million—when they turned 35. Watson Jr. was unaware that Patricia was his adoptive granddaughter when he died and, in the eyes of the law, now a beneficiary to the trust. (The case led to a protracted court fight between Patricia and the Watson family that ended in a settlement that was never disclosed. Suffice to say, family members play rough when faced with the prospect of sharing their wealth with an adopted lover.) 
 
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 But should we really care why one grownup is being adopted by another? Should we require some sort of true parent or child-type relationship in order to adopt? Courts are split, with some jurisdictions judging harshly the morals of a paramour or spousal adoption, and some indicating that it is irrelevant absent a specific statute banning the practice. But most American courts that have faced adoption petitions from lovers have permitted the adoptions, unbothered by the underlying relationship between the parties. California, in particular, routinely grants petitions for adult adoption of gay and lesbian partners. 
 
 But before you go out and adopt your lover, there is one pretty serious repercussion you should consider: Are you committing incest? An incest conviction can result in serious jail time. And think about it: The adopter is having sexual relations with his or her legal child. Is that not incest? 
 
 For as long as anyone can remember, almost all cultures have outlawed at least some form of sexual relations and/or marriage between family members. Written prohibitions can be traced as far back as the Levitical Codes. Incest is a statutory crime that has been around in America since colonial times. 
 
 My research indicates that today at least 25 states and territories, representing over 140.8 million people (approximately 46 percent of the total population) in the United States, are subject to laws that include the adopted parent/adult child relationship within the definition of incest. That means a good many adult adoptions solve one legal problem but create an arguably worse one. Fortunately for both Goodman and his daughter/girlfriend, Florida is not one of these states. Otherwise, they might find themselves facing criminal prosecution, as have adopters and adoptees elsewhere. 
 
 But should this conduct be considered incest? It cannot be that it is a eugenics issue—the possibility of having abnormal children—since the sexual partners are not biologically related. Perhaps it is something more instinctual, something we think about in an almost subconscious way somewhere in the murky base of our brain. Generally, society has been confused on these issues throughout history and into the present day. Or are we asking the wrong question altogether? Should the inquiry instead be case-by-case whether a true parent-child relationship exists rather than distinguishing between blood or adoption?
– "Want my money while you're still young? Then you have to play by my rules." That's pretty much what deceased Manhattan real estate landlord Maurice Laboz has posthumously told his two daughters, the New York Post reports. According to his will, 17-year-old Victoria and 21-year-old Marlena will get $10 million apiece at age 35 but can only touch the dough earlier if they provide trustees with evidence of a rather traditional lifestyle. To wit: Marlena gets $500,000 for getting married, as long as the groom signs an agreement saying he won't touch the cash. She gets $750,000 more for graduating from an "accredited university" and writing up to 100 words on what she'll do with the money. In five years, Marlena and Victoria each receive a yearly check for 300% of their annual income. Uncle Sam will love the date when they get it: April 15. If either becomes a stay-at-home mom with kids, she gets 3% of the trust's value each year, providing the children are "born in wedlock." Their mother, 58-year-old Ewa Laboz, isn't so lucky: Maurice offered her nil, citing a prenuptial agreement. He was divorcing her when he died at age 77 earlier this year. How did Luboz get so loaded? Well, it's New York real estate: Just four years ago, his Regal Real Estate sold nearly $40 million in properties "scattered across Manhattan," reported Rew Online at the time. "These are core investment properties, they just have great rates of return so you can sit there [and] rent and manage them," said a figure involved in the deal.