Judge authorizes special‑needs trust to protect benefits for Azania; trustee cites $500K–$600K corpus

The court granted a petition to establish a special‑needs trust for Azania, who is autistic and the subject of prior proceedings in another state. Mark Jackson, petitioner’s counsel, and Johan Bowman, trust officer for County National Bank (successor trustee), told the court the trust is designed to preserve Azania’s eligibility for social welfare programs and to provide for her future needs while protecting benefits.

Jackson said other states’ filings and a guardian ad litem report supported establishing the trust. Bowman indicated the trust corpus is approximately $500,000 to $600,000 and said the amount makes a special‑needs trust appropriate to supplement, but not replace, state benefits. The court instructed counsel to submit an order accurately describing the relief; the judge said she would sign the order upon presentation.