Help me get this story out in the open. This is a twelve year ongoing battle about legal issues and the fraud involved against government agencies that they don't seem to care about even when given facts. I will try to keep this as short as I can, but it does cover twelve years.
In August of 1995 I filed for divorce after being separated for ten months. We were married in Feb 1976, we were both high school graduates and we both worked similar paying jobs. I was a landscaper and she was a clerk/cashier.
In Dec we had a son and soon after she went back to work whereas I stayed home, having the winter off, to take care of our son during the day. In the spring, when I returned to work, my mother-in-law would watch our son while we worked. This was how it went for 4 years. Then in 1981 I became unemployed for 3 years and became the "house husband" and took care of raising our son while she worked.
In 1984 I got into the printing business on the ground floor as a bundle maker, but by now our son was 8 years old, going into the third grade and we lived downstairs from my mother, who would watch him after school until one of us got home. I get into detail on this because she has tried to use the argument that "she gave up any future career to become a housewife".
Over the next ten years, I worked my way up to being a press operator and at the time of our separation, she had worked her way up to a shift supervisor and was eligible for benifits if she needed them. We separated in Oct of 1994 and she still kept working, so far, so good.
Now comes Aug 1995 and she received the complaint for divorce. She did the following: 1 - got a lawyer (nothing wrong with that), 2- quit her job, and 3-filed for temporary alimony to go back to school and increase her earning potential. The alimony was granted, to which I agreed at the time, in Sept. Everything seemed pretty above board to me at the time but from here on in it gets very interesting.
We were back in court in March of 1996 to finalize the divorce and along with the education reason tried to say her depression and anxiety affected her ability to work. Right after our son was born, while working through some post-partum depression she became familiar with the term "agoraphobia". Of course, she went back to work at the time and agoraphobia was forgotten about. Now in 1996, it was a reason to not be able to work.
I knew that at least once a week, she drove to the town I lived in, from where she lived, two towns over. I figured I would get a picture of her driving to help me challenge the "not able to leave the house" claim. Hard lesson #1, she filed for a restraining order and it was granted because obviously photographs must; make her fear for her life.
The fact of the matter is during our 18 year marriage there was never any abuse or reports of any, a fact my son and even her own family members can attest to. If anything, when I left, she did nothing but beg me to come back and when she realized that I wasn't, she decided to "punish" me.
The restraining order went one year and then she let it drop. Because she would not let me know anything she was doing, I filed the first of my alimony modifications to at least find out how the schooling was going in 1999, three years after the divorce.
Going before Judge Stevens, I found out she was taking a correspondence course in "forestry and conservation". The judge agreed that there should be some kind of finalization, but continued the case pending her finishing her course.
When we went back to court six months later we went before Judge Edward J. Rockett who without the benefit of looking at any of my evidence or hearing anything I had to say, proceeded to reprimand me for even bringing this to trial, as he would not have let it get this far, and that if I went further and went to trial he would more than likely increase the alimony.
Taking that as the threat it was, I dropped the case and alimony was continued as it was. I finally figured I would need a lawyer if I was going to get anywhere. I got a transcript of my day in court with Judge Rockett and though most of what he had to say came through just fine, there was nothing I could do other than have him taken off my case due to prejudice. My lawyer didn't feel that was necessary, we filed a second modification went back in front of the judge and got him to agree to let us see the medical records which supposedly showed her inability to work.
For the period of 1995 to 1999 she was also collecting EAEDC which they stopped when they found out she had $100 a week of income which she never told them about. At the time of the granting of the viewing of medical records, she had applied for SSI, having lost the EAEDC so the case was continued until the SSI medical verdict was rendered.
Able to stall for a year, I was out of money and had to go on pro se. When I finally got back to court, I had none of the evidence I felt I needed but luckily I didn't go before Judge Rockett. The new judge, although she knew the direction I was trying to go, told me she would have to continue alimony because she could only make a ruling based on income, but that if I had proof of my allegations it could be a different story.
Just before this court date I received two very disturbing pieces of hate mail containing cut out letters and pictures with threatening messages, one addressed to me and one addressed to my present wife. Because they contained information only my ex-wife knew, it wasn't hard to figure out wher e they came from. At first I was going to ignore them, but on the advice of a mental health expert, I took them to the courthouse and filed for a restraining order March 1 2000. I went back on the ten day hearing and she had yet to be served, it seemed funny that someone so house bound would not be home every time the police went by.
On March 21, the day of the hearing, she came in and filed a retaliatory 209A based on no factual information. Because we both had an order before the judge, he granted them both, without ever listening to me or my defense. After the order was granted I became the victim, as the post office put it, of "merchandise abuse". I started receiving magazines I had supposedly subscribed to and had to send letters to over twelve different magazines cancelling and explaining why. Because it's merely considered a nuisance it is on the bottom of the importance scale and doesn't even warrant looking into by the post office.
After a year I vacated my 209A but she kept hers going until 2003 even though hers was granted without my being able to refute it or defend myself. Now, based on the "advice" I received from the judge the last time in court and my own experience with picture taking , I decided to try the "right" approach.
In the summer of 2004, I hired a private investigator to try and prove what I already had many people, some who have agreed to be witnesses, telling me about my ex-wifes activity. The whole time she has been claiming she can't work she has been very active in her social life, which I knew but had to prove.
After the report from the PI which covered the period of 05/04/04 - 07/23/04, I had pictures of her shopping, driving, going to pay a bill at a funeral home and attending a baby shower at a function hall that she planned for her sister-in-law. These were the events I had actual photos of but during that same period she also attended two weddings, another shower and went out to bars to hear bands. Again, these are only the times I'm aware of due to people telling me without me even asking.
In October, 2004 I believed it was the right time to hire a lawyer and file again for modification. I knew that the three months she was actually watched was typical of her behavior since 1994. Not at all "agoraphobic" and no sign of panic. After my lawyer contacted her for documents about her "condition" of not being able to work, she stalled as long as she could and finally gave some information.
In July 2005 she was brought in by my lawyer to be deposed and we ended up with 200 pages of, what I would have thought, very damaging evidence. She admitted to all kinds of social activity, far more than I was even aware of, but she still wouldn't sign any releases for SSI records for us to check how they reached their finding of her eligibility for disability. My lawyer filed a motion for disclosure but the best we could get from the judge is that the judge herself would look at the files and decide what information is pertinent to the case.
By the spring of 2006, my lawyer told me she felt that even with all my evidence the judge would still be looking for a "change of circumstance" in order to quit the alimony. What that says to me is, fraud is fine, even if you can show it's fraud, as long as it's continuous. My lawyer also told me that she "didn't want to take my money" because of how she now felt about the case, I guess $5,000 was enough.
Now, without a lawyer, I decided to speak with the SSI fraud division. The person I spoke with said they would be very interested in the information I had gathered. In April, 2006 I sent copies of everything I had so far, the PI report with photos, full copies of the deposition and a list of witnesses willing to testify.
During the summer and fall of 2006 I, along with my present wife of ten years, attended various functions involving my grandchildren that the ex-wife also attended. Confirmation, birthdays and the like.of which I have pictures of all of us attending and at which I never saw any signs of panic or even mild discomfort. These photos I added to my list of evidence and although I no longer had a lawyer, I filed for a trial date. Pre-trial was set for October 20, 2006.
On August 9, I called my ex-wife to set up a meeting and show her what I had for evidence and to bring a double alimony payment to cover 8/11 and 8/18. At that time she agreed on August 15, 7:30 pm at Dunkin' Donuts. It was my request for a highly public place because I've already been through two restraining order fiascos with her and I will never place myself alone with her again. She kept asking why I couldn't come to her house and I explained I didn't trust her.
On the night of the meeting, she called and said she wasn't going, I told her what I wanted to meet for and she accused me of "threatening her". This meant I now had to mail the check, which now would be late a day, and I also enclosed a letter saying I would meet her at her house if we could have witnesses present. I never got a reply.
On that friday, Aug 16, she ran down to the courthouse and filed contempt charges because she hadn't received the check I was going to hand her in person on the 15th. When she got the check on the 19th, she cashed it, I was caught up, but she went ahead with the contempt hearing anyway. This was the fourth time she has done this and for the fourth time it was dropped.
This woman has no problem using the courts for her own little retribution driven causes and she still has more as you will see. Finally I heard from her lawyer and we set Oct 6 as the day to get together and do exactly what I tried to do in Aug., go over the evidence.
It needs to be clarified at this point that since Aug 15 I have only dealt with the ex-wife through her lawyer. We went to court on Oct 20 for the pre-trial hearing and who do I get filling in that day Judge Edward J. Rockett. Although he tried to badger me into not setting a trial date, even going so far as to say I would be responsible for the legal fees of my ex-wifes lawyer "when I lost the case", I held firm and asked for my "legal right" for a trial. The trial date was set for Dec 21, 2006.
Also at this time I began having some physical problems starting in July of 2006 and worsened until I was finally found to have two ruptured discs in my neck. Because I was in a lot of pain and facing surgery, her lawyer and I have had the court date moved up to March 7, 2007, feeling I would have recovered enough from my Jan 4 surgery.
You would think that would be the end of the story, but as I said before, this woman will use anything, including the court system, to harrass. On the evening of Dec 26 there was a knock on my door. I opened the door to see two police officers and sure enough they serve me with another restraining order. The day I was supposed to appear was Jan 4, the day of my surgery.
She waited until Dec 19, hoping I would get served before Christmas, and she knew full well I was having surgery on Jan 4 because we moved the trial date. I had to go have the hearing changed until later and found out then that she was using the fact that I "threatened" her in Aug for filing in Dec. I also found at that time she started going to Community College ( agoraphobia, panic ? ) because that was listed as a place for me to stay away from.
When I went in to court on Jan 19, the restraining order was not granted because the judge said she has no evidence that she's in "fear for her life". To sum up the points I'm trying to make with this "novel" as follows;
1- the legal system doesn't want to even consider the possibility that the alimony is being awarded under false pretenses.
2- SSI seems to not be as interested in fraud as they claim to be. She has yet to be investigated or even contacted. A major problem this presents to me is that this lack of action by SSI is being used as a defense that she is doing nothing wrong. How anybody can read her deposition where, besides a full and unimpaired social life, she readily admits there is nothing preventing her from working at home, nothing hindering her day to day activities and so on, and not see the blatent fraud amazes me. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of therapy knows everything is based on self disclosure so if a person knows the right things to say they can make anything believable unless someone actually looks into their activities rather than what they're being told.
3- The fact that she has no problem using the court system as a personal means of retribution by filing a number of frivolous restraining orders and contempt charges. The bottom line is I feel
I need to get my story out because I am getting nowhere with any authorities and I have already put myself too far in debt with the PI ($5000), Lawyers ($15,000+) and Alimony ($60,000+) to the point of losing my house, I'm in forclosure, ruining my credit and leaving me with a very bad taste from the legal system.
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