Several wealthy ‘cryonauts,’ who freeze their bodies after death in the
hope of someday being revived, are exploring ways to hold onto their
wealth in the frosty hereafter — in effect, leaving their money to
themselves.

You can’t take it with you. So Arizona resort operator David Pizer has a plan to come back and get it.

Like some 1,000 other members of the "cryonics"
movement, Mr. Pizer has made arrangements to have his body frozen in
liquid nitrogen as soon as possible after he dies. In this way, Mr.
Pizer, a heavy-set, philosophical man who is 64 years old, hopes to be
revived sometime in the future when medicine has advanced far beyond
where it stands today.

And because Mr. Pizer doesn’t wish to return a pauper, he’s taken an additional step: He’s left his money to himself.

With the help of an estate planner, Mr. Pizer has
created legal arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his
roughly $10 million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated.
Mr. Pizer says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen,
he could wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world."

Though cryonic suspension of human remains is still
dismissed by most medical experts as an outlandish idea, Mr. Pizer is
not alone in hoping to hold onto his wealth into the frosty hereafter.

"I figure I have a better than even chance of coming
back," says Don Laughlin, the 75-year-old founder of an eponymous
casino and resort in Laughlin, Nev. Mr. Laughlin, who turned a
down-and-out motel he bought in 1966 into a gambling fortune, plans to
leave himself $5 million.

At least a dozen wealthy American and foreign
businessmen are testing unfamiliar legal territory by creating
so-called personal revival trusts designed to allow them to reclaim
their riches hundreds, or even thousands, of years into the future.

Such financial arrangements, which tie up money that
might otherwise go to heirs or charities, are "more widespread than I
originally thought," says A. Christopher Sega, an adjunct professor of
law at Georgetown University and a trusts and estates attorney at
Venable LLP, in Washington. Mr. Sega says he’s created three revival
trusts in the last year.

In December, a trusts expert from Wachovia Trust Co.,
part of Wachovia Corp., participated in the First Annual Colloquium on
the Law of Transhuman Persons held in Florida. His PowerPoint
presentation was titled "Issues Facing Trustees of Personal Revival
Trusts." A Wachovia spokesman confirmed the bank is named as trustee in
one cryonics case but declined to comment further for this article.

To serve clients who plan on being frozen, attorneys
are tweaking so-called dynasty trusts that can legally endure hundreds
of years, or even indefinitely. Such trusts, once widely prohibited,
are now allowed by more than 20 states — including Arizona, Illinois
and New Jersey — and typically are used to shield assets from estate
taxes. They pay out funds to a person’s children, grandchildren and
future generations.

The chilling new twist: In addition to heirs or
charities, estate lawyers are also naming their cryonics clients as
beneficiaries. If they come back to life after being frozen, the funds
revert back to them. Assuming, that is, that there are no legal
challenges to the plans.

Thomas Katz, an estate planner at the law firm Ruden
McClosky in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., believes cryonics could raise
fundamental legal quandaries. Upon coming back to life, for instance,
would a person have to repay their life insurance? "Our legal notion of
death is pretty fixed. The scientific notion might not be as time goes
by," Mr. Katz says.

Christopher Gloe, a senior attorney with the Marshall
& Ilsley Trust Co. in Milwaukee, says his organization rejected an
offer to invest money in a cryonics case after the question went before
the bank’s management committee several years ago. "We turned it down
because we are a conservative Midwestern trust company, and not likely
to get involved in an unproven entity such as a cryonics trust," said
Mr. Gloe.

Some 142 human bodies or heads, including that of
baseball legend Ted Williams, are now held in cold-storage at one of
two U.S. cryonics facilities, Alcor Life Extension Foundation in
Scottsdale Ariz., and the Cryonics Institute of Clinton Township, Mich.

People interested in cryonics are mostly male,
frequently single, and typically have a strong interest in technology
and predicting future events. And yet it’s hard to know just how
wide-spread the phenomenon of personal revival trusts is, since some
wealthy individuals may fear ridicule if their hopes for immortality
became known. Like in the tale of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, "the
image of local farmers climbing the mountain with pitchforks and
torches is still in people’s minds," says Kenneth Weiss, 63, co-founder
of RSA Security, which markets SecurID computer-user-authentication
cards.

Mr. Weiss, who retired in 1996 with RSA stock valued
in the tens of millions of dollars, says he plans to be cryopreserved
and is now working with a Swiss bank to stash money off shore. Mr.
Weiss says he knows several "billionaires" with similar plans but
declines to name them. "People who are really taking this thing
seriously have no need for notoriety," he says.

The cryonics-trust phenomenon dates back at least to
1989, with the formation by two American entrepreneurs of the
Reanimation Foundation, a trust based in Liechtenstein, the tiny
European principality known for its liberal tax rules. It offers
memberships to people willing to put in as little as $25,000, say
clients. According to a promotional flier, which asks "How Rich Will
You Be?," a $10,000 investment could grow to $8,677,163 in 100 years.
"You’ll be able to buy youth and perfect health for centuries," says
the pitch.

One successful businessman planning for the future is
Robert Miller, the owner of Future Electronics Inc., a wholesale
electronics distributor based in Montreal. Mr. Miller, whose net worth
is $4 billion, according to the company, declined to be interviewed.

However, Pierre Guilbault, Future’s chief financial
officer and executive vice president, confirmed that Mr. Miller "does
not want to pass away" and has plans to put a "substantial" sum away
for himself in a trust for when he is cryopreserved. Mr. Miller gives
generously to charity and other causes, but Mr. Guilbault says "the
question is who earned the money. You earned it, and it’s yours."

No one knows just what future technology may bring, or
what form a new existence could take. Mr. Laughlin confronted that
issue in a meeting last August with his lawyers while drafting a trust.
Mr. Laughlin opted against allowing a mere biological clone to get his
money. He insisted whoever gets the funds should have "my memories."

"We can’t anticipate the science of the future, so we
need some definition that will be flexible and stand the test of time,"
says Scott Swain, Mr. Laughlin’s tax attorney.

Since people like Mr. Laughlin may rest in icy slumber
for hundreds of years, protecting their assets from the living is apt
to be a key challenge. After all, even the most standard of trusts have
long been susceptible to dishonest managers — not to mention
challenges from disgruntled heirs.

When Jakob P. Canaday, a Florida investor, died in
2004 of throat cancer, he left behind plans to stash his millions in a
long-lasting trust with directions that he would recoup the money if
and when his "human remains are revived and restored to life,"
according to court documents.

On the eve of Mr. Canaday’s death, however, his two daughters produced a new will, which left his fortune to them.

Now there’s a lawsuit pending in Broward County, Fla.,
Circuit Court. Mr. Canaday’s brother, Siesel "Bud" Canaday, a retired
Wall Street bond trader, says his sibling always wanted to be frozen
and insists that the second will is not valid. No matter how bizarre
his brother’s choices may be, Mr. Canaday says, "it’s tradition to
honor the will of the deceased." Daughter Michelle Canaday declined to
comment on the case.

Despite the uncertainties, cryonauts are choosing
their investments carefully. Edward O. Thorp, a hedge-fund industry
pioneer, created a cryonics trust in 1997 funded by a $200,000
life-insurance policy. At 73, he says he’s now arranging a larger trust
– of between $1 million and $50 million — which he will direct to
invest in no-load index-tracking mutual funds to avoid management and
trading fees. He puts the odds of a person frozen today coming back at
2%. "I figure it’s worth a lottery ticket," says Dr. Thorp, who has a
Ph.D. in mathematics. The Orange County Business Journal estimated his
net worth to be more than $100 million to $300 million.

In Arizona, Mr. Pizer says he hopes his wife will join
him in cryonic storage. And even if his trust money is somehow lost or
stolen during his time on ice, he’ll be content just as long as he
returns to life. If he does, he says he’d use the opportunity to work
hard and create new businesses. "I made it the first time from nothing,
and I could do it again."

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