A $5 million life insurance fund, established by William Parente, a New York lawyer who apparently killed his family, then himself in a Maryland hotel room last year, has become the focal point of several legal claims in New York.

Parente and his family were found dead by Baltimore County police in a Sheraton hotel in Towson, Md., April 20, 2009. Parente killed his family, then fatally stabbed himself in the neck, according to police records obtained by Newsday. The family lived in Garden City, N.Y.

His wife, Betty Parente, 58, was found bludgeoned with a lamp and asphyxiated, while the bodies of the couple’s daughter, Catherine, 11, who was asphyxiated, and Stephanie, 19, a sophomore at Loyola University in Baltimore, Md., who was beaten and asphyxiated, lay in the bed next to their mother, according to police.

The deaths have spawned a series of allegations and civil suits, as heirs to William Parente, Betty Parente and their children each seek access to the life insurance proceeds, while former clients of William Parente, a Manhattan, N.Y.-based estate and tax lawyer, allege in court papers that he cost them between $14 million and $35 million, according to Newsday.

Investors allege in court papers that William Parente’s commercial bridge loan investment business was a Ponzi scheme, paying old investors with the money coming in from new investors, Newsday reported. The FBI has begun investigating the claims, according to the report.

Other issues remain. A Nassau Surrogate’s Court is weighing whether Betty Parente’s survivors can claim benefits from the life insurance policy if they can prove she died before her husband. In Nassau State Supreme Court, the estates of Betty Parente and her children are suing William Parente’s estate for wrongful death as a means of accessing the life insurance proceeds, according to the report.

The key question is whether William Parente is found to have murdered his family, the newspaper said, citing estate lawyers. If no guilty plea or jury verdict is rendered, they say, then it is unlikely a judge would keep William Parente’s heirs from claiming money in the life insurance policy.

That question could be resolved with a posthumous trial, a rare legal action that could occur in New York if the parties don’t resolve the claims, the report said. No trial date has been scheduled.

Sources told Newsday shortly after William Parente’s death that he had been depressed over the death of his mother and was having financial problems.