To preface: some of what I know (or what I think I know?) about this comes from listening to Dave, and some of it was learned somewhere in my quest to go to law school.
As others have said, the will would stipulate a trustee for the money, which would most likely be the sociopath's lawyer or CPA, so naturally the trustee's trustworthiness is probably in question. The sociopath could have included any number of restrictions for the money. If the reporter (or the kid) didn't like some/any/all of the restrictions, she could contest it in court. The results would vary from judge to judge, but in most cases the judge would use the rule of "what a reasonable person would have done" when making up restrictions.
Using college as an example: The will says the money will only pay for college if kid goes to X school. Kid wants to go to Y school. Reporter (or Kid only, if over 18 at this point) takes it to court to try to get the money to pay for Y school. Most likely the judge would rule that the money won't pay for Y school, because a reasonable person could/would have made that stipulation. It wouldn't directly matter if the sociopath was a sociopath or a criminal or whatever, as long as a reasonable person could/would have made that restriction.
If, however, the restriction was something insane, like Kid can only have the money if he jumps off a 40 story building and lives, then the judge would throw that out because no reasonable person would make that restriction.
Hopefully that helped. And made sense. And was correct.
~Anna
