The daughter of a former longtime Michigan State University trustee and Black power-broker Joel Ferguson is challenging a trust made shortly before his death that gave his then-wife millions of dollars.

Jennifer Ferguson, one of his five children, filed a petition in Ingham County Probate Court asking a judge to void all of the amendments to his trust after he suffered a stroke in April 2023. In the petition, Jennifer Ferguson said her father’s ailments, exacerbated by the stroke, allowed him to be taken advantage of by his wife, Anna Strong.

“Jennifer is disturbed,” her attorney Douglas Chalgian of Chalgian & Tripp Law Office said. “She feels her father was exploited as a vulnerable adult.”

Previously, Strong’s share of the estate was $1 million, which was noted to have been reduced by gifts he’d given her. However, in the new estate planning documents, the petition said, her share was $4 million with no caveat.

“Joel Ferguson was quite a great man. I’ve practiced a long time in the area of financial exploitation of vulnerable adults,” Chalgian said. “Even people this prominent face threats of exploitation when the person becomes impaired.”

Strong’s attorneys with Dickinson Wright were not immediately available Thursday for comment.

The 10-page petition details how Joel Ferguson’s health declined in the last years of his life, and how his longtime “companion” and eventual wife used the decline as a way to change parts of his will to benefit her. The petition pointed to the additional millions of dollars, his house and other things that were left to Strong in changes to his will made after his stroke.

The petition said Joel Ferguson was in no cognitive condition to make changes to his will after suffering from health issues in the past few years. He heavily relied during the last few years on Strong, who refused to allow his family access to his medical records, the petition said.

Strong and Joel Ferguson “secretly married” in December 2023, according to the petition. Shortly after, the petition said, new fiduciaries were added to his will, including lobbyists John Pirich and Joe Garcia, and Lansing real estate developer Paul Gentilozzi.

At the same time, the petition said, Joel Ferguson was involved in three “high-dollar” developments: the Red Cedar project in Lansing, the State Fair Grounds redevelopment in Detroit, and a downtown redevelopment project in Muskegon, which represented hundreds of millions of dollars in investments, the petition said.

Joel Ferguson was a longtime MSU trustee, first elected in 1986 and reelected three times. He was the longest-serving member of the board when he announced in 2020 he would not seek reelection. He chaired the board for more than a decade and was the board’s first Black chair.

Joel Ferguson was born in Lansing and influenced politics in his hometown and home state his entire life. In 1967, he became the first African American elected to the Lansing City Council and served three terms. He worked on the presidential campaigns for Robert F. Kennedy, George McGovern and the Rev. Jesse Jackson and was vice chair of the National Democratic Committee’s Black Caucus from 2001-03.

He was also a well-known developer. In 1973, he co-founded F&S Development Company, which became Ferguson Development LLC in 1996. In his real estate career, he developed at least 14 multifamily residential complexes across Michigan, as well as a number of office properties in the Lansing area.

satwood@detroitnews.com