Donna Herring is accused of creating Matthew Jacobs' last will and testament days after he died in January 2015.
A Ouachita County Circuit Court judge won’t allow a retrial in the probate case of the estate of Matthew Jacobs, who was a survivor of the Deepwater Horizon explosion who later died in an auto accident.
If you recall, back in March, Circuit Judge Spencer Singleton threw out the fake will allegedly created by Donna Herring, a Camden real estate agent, to make sure her daughter received Jacobs’ assets, which were valued at $2 million.
After the ruling, Herring’s daughter, Jordan Alexandra Peterson, who goes by Alex and is now 22, asked Singleton for a retrial in the case because she didn’t know the trial was happening.
He denied her request in a two-paragraph order, paving the way for Jacobs’ son, Jordan Jacobs, to receive his father’s estate.
“My client is glad that the latest effort to prolong his father’s estate was denied,” Adam Reid of Little Rock, an attorney who represented Jordan Jacobs, said in an email response to questions from Whispers. “We are hopeful that the estate administration can proceed without any further unnecessary delays.”
Meanwhile, the purported will led to federal wire fraud charges against Herring, Peterson and Herring’s sister and brother-in-law, Marion “Diane” Kinley and John Wayne Kinley Jr.
All four defendants have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is set for Sept. 11.
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