Promoters sell living trusts as a way to pass on an inheritance without sacrificing privacy. What they don't say is that because living trusts have no probate court oversight, their "privacy" opens the door to abuse. Consider the case of the good father and his crooked lawyers.

Peter J. Mooney was a retired Catholic priest who was dying of liver disease when he asked St. Petersburg lawyers Burt D. Moore and Jacquelyn M. Bowsman to draft an estate plan. They set up Father Mooney with a living trust.

The priest had made his wishes clear. He wanted to make an anonymous gift of his life savings -- nearly $83,000 -- to the St. Petersburg Free Clinic, which provides the working poor and elderly with services including medical care, food, shelter and emergency financial assistance.

If the estate had gone through probate, court officials would have read his will and seen that the charity got its inheritance. Father Mooney's living trust came with no such safeguards; his wishes rested solely in the hands of his lawyers.

After Father Mooney's death, a friend got suspicious about those lawyers and called the Florida Bar. When a Bar investigator asked Burt Moore what had become of the dead priest's money, the lawyer refused to answer, citing the trust's "sacrosanct privileges" of freedom from official oversight.

The Bar pressed on, working with prosecutors to uncover a trail of heartless deceit. According to them, Moore and Bowsman began plundering the priest's estate a month before his death. By the time the law caught up, the money was gone.

Father Mooney's gift could have purchased nearly a year's worth of medicine for 1,200 Free Clinic patients, said executive director Marcie Biddleman. That's one thousand, two hundred men and women who cannot otherwise afford medications for high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic ailments.

What became of the cash? According to prosecutors, attorneys Bowsman and Moore played the stock market, paid personal loans, and covered office expenses. In other words they used Father Mooney's legacy as a personal slush fund.

The two pleaded guilty to grand theft and, earlier this year, were sentenced. Bowsman, who cooperated with authorities, was given probation. Moore, who had fled, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for notary fraud and probation for theft. They are supposed to repay the stolen $82,725, although the Free Clinic has not yet seen any of the cash.

Living trust advocates will dismiss this case as a fluke, arguing that most trusts are administered properly. But think about it: What would have happened if one of Father Mooney's friends had not grown suspicious and contacted the Bar? Working in the "sacrosanct" privacy of the living trust, the lawyers could have stolen the money and never been caught.

Maybe that only happens once in a while. Or maybe it happens all the time.