Victim #168: Retirement Expectations Dashed

.... All of us has our own horror story, and I guess it's all relative. Personally, I turned over $425K in assets, plus half of my retirement to the Ex at the time of the divorce, and have paid her initally $3,500/mo. for the first 5-1/2 years, reduced to $3,200/mo. as per by our mediated settlement for the next five+ years.

Her alimony was exactly twice what I later found out was the maximum of any of my working contempories.

Now that I just retired, she is petitioning the court to have the alimony "RAISED", at the same time as the failure of my former employers pension fund, and subsequent takeover by the federal government.(PBGC). I'll be luck to get 25 cents on the dollar of what I expected my retirement pension to be.

My only bright spot is that I stashed a fair amount away by keeping my lifestyle conservative.... Yeah, she describes me as "Cheap".

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Victim #168: Sell Your Clothes to Pay for Alimony

In short, my story was a child support order for 100% of my income due to fraud by the ex, her attorney, and a crooked accountant.

When the wife told the court that I hid income (kinda impossible, I'm a computer consultant for businesses only then, who only paid by check) so the court froze all my business bank accounts to "flush" out the hidden money.  Because there wasn't any, I got to starve and survived only on borrowing from family and taking handouts from a charitable organization.

After losing my attorney, and doing it myself for about 3 years, I fought back hard, figuring if I was going to keep getting beat up, I'd at least give a few people bloody noses.  It worked and they eventually left me alone.

In the process, I was found indigent for 18 appeals, yet no orders of incarceration were ever overturned in the 4DCA, which is why I was reviewing Bowen v. Bowen.  I have a transcript excerpt where, not being able to find any assets for a contempt finding, the judge ruled I could have sold the clothes I was wearing for at least a penny, and therefore was in contempt for not doing so.

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Victim #167: Even Lawyers Aren't Immune From Attack

Updated: In a new incident among a spate of case-related violent attacks on lawyers in recent weeks, a Minnesota man has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing his ex-wife's attorney a dozen times in her law office Friday.

Terri Ann Melcher, 54, was alone in her Fridley, Minn., office at the time and called 911 after the suspect, Sheikh Nyane, departed, KARE 11 reports. She is in critical but stable condition and is expected to survive.

[READ MORE...]

[SOME OTHERS...]

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Toronto woman to get $110,000 a month in spousal support

The following is a quote from the lawyer representing a woman who just made history by taking her hubby to the cleaners with not only millions in assets but the biggest alimony settlement in Canada ever of $110,000.00 per month. Yes that is per month. Oh to be a kept woman and have to deal with expenses of over $88,000 per month.

Can you imagine a person who is not generating any economic activity to support herself has expenses of over $1,000,000.00 per year. It is this kind of decision by judicial activist social engineers that causes women's privileged rights to come under such severe scrutiny and criticism. It is nothing more than judicially imposed welfare and she becomes a judicial welfare bum.

This is gold digging on a massive scale. It is not something a judge is required to do because of legislation. The social engineering activist judge did it because she could. I hope he appeals because these judgments of the uber-rich have a habit of becoming precedents impacting those of us at the low end of the income scale on a proportionate basis.

The trickle down approach to males keeping females from their own victimhood all through choices they made themselves. Take note of the comment the woman was not employable. Her choice and no one elses.


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How Marriage Today Is Slavery For Men

In “On The Subjugation of Women”, John Stewart Mill compared the institution of marriage to the institution of slavery. Mill argued that wives were like slaves because the laws at that time made them subject to the whims of their husbands. According to Mill, the laws at the time forced women to obey. In fact, Mill argued that women were worse off than slaves because women weren’t even free from their servitude even when they went to bed at night.

One hundred and forty years have passed since Mill wrote his essay, and many things have changed in this country around marriage laws. Most of these changes have been indisputably positive. If the pendulum was too far to the “men’s” side during Mill’s time, many of these laws have moved the pendulum towards the middle, where it should be. However, while it is politically incorrect to say so, I would argue that the the pendulum has swung over to the “woman’s” side so much so that the institution of marriage today is a form of slavery for men.

[READ MORE...]

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Victim #166: Ex is paid $46,000 to sit on her ass

My former husband was also a victim of Florida's unfair alimony practices.  I found him hanging in the garage six years ago.  Once again, our District Courts handed out a lifetime sentence of alimony.  He wasn't even the one that wanted the divorce.  His ex did.

At the time of his death his children were 16 and 14.  They have been fatherless for six years now all because of the unfair alimony practices that are affecting thousands of families in this State.

I am now remarried to a wonderful man.  He is also in this same predicament.  Paying permanent lifetime alimony, plus child support.  His credit was destroyed, while his ex's credit became increasingly better because of her "new" yearly salary.  She receives over $46,000.00 a year for sitting on her ass. 

Our Courts are giving incentives to these receivers of alimony not to work, not to financially support their children, and become non-productive entities in our society.  Our Family Court system is broken and is destroying lives, literally.  The Court System is extremely bias toward men, and this has to change.

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Victim #165: Media Attention Needed

I think one of the most important things for us to stress if we get some media attention is the fact that this is not just a problem for "rich" people.  I think there is a misconception by most people that alimony is only paid to rich women by their rich ex-husbands.  NOT TRUE!  My boyfriend's salary is in the mid 60's (BEFORE taxes) and he pays $25K per year in alimony - plus child support (which is, of course, A LOT LESS than what he pays in alimony). 

I also think we should reiterate the fact that our financial obligations end when our kids are 18 or out of high school, but alimony is given to GROWN adults who should be able to take of themselves!!

Finally, even though the legislators in Florida passed the "cohabitation" clause, it is almost impossible to meet the standards/criteria set to prove that a supportive relationship exists with another person, and the judges are not enforcing it even after positive proof is presented!  (Judge Gary Farmer wrote an excellent dissent on this subject - See Linstroth v. Dorgan, Fourth District Court of Appeal)

I could go on and on - this whole subject just infuriates me more and more every day.  I see the anguish on my boyfriend's face every time we discuss our future. 

Because of his financial obligation to his EX-wife, we will never be able to buy a home together (he had to file bankruptcy because of his alimony obligation).  And, get this - the judge ordered his ex to put their home up for sale, but to continue to make the house payment until such time that the home sold.  That was last October.  She has not put the home on the market and she has not made a house payment since October 2008.  She still lives in the house and it hasn't been foreclosed on because of the backlog of foreclosures in Florida right now!!!!

So, she is getting all this alimony for her supposed "living expenses", but she has only been paying for utilities for the past year. We can't take her to court for contempt on this because even though she agreed in writing to keep their child under her insurance plan at work - which is cheaper and better insurance - the judge still ordered him to pay for health insurance for the minor child - this on top of alimony and child support! 

He feels that if he pushes her on the house payment issue, she will say that he isn't paying for the health insurance, which he was ordered to do and the judge would not grant a rehearing re: the insurance issue!!!

He even has to make HER car payment even though she now brings home twice as much money each month as he does!  I have never witnessed something so unfair.  I feel for everyone who has to live with this burden. 

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The New Art of Alimony

Boston

Paul and Theresa Taylor were married for 17 years. He was an engineer for Boston's public-works department, while she worked in accounting at a publishing company. They had three children, a weekend cottage on the bay and a house in the suburbs, on a leafy street called Cranberry Lane. In 1982, when they got divorced, the split was amicable. She got the family home; he got the second home. Both agreed "to waive any right to past, present or future alimony."

But recently, more than two decades after the divorce, Ms. Taylor, 64, told a Massachusetts judge she had no job, retirement savings or health insurance. Earlier this year, the judge ordered Mr. Taylor, now 68 and remarried, to pay $400 per week to support his ex-wife.

[READ MORE...]

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Victim #164: CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz to pay his ex-wife $916,000 a year in alimony and child support.

BRIDGEPORT, Conn.

A Connecticut judge has ordered CBS sportscaster Jim Nantz to pay his ex-wife $916,000 a year in alimony and child support.

Monday's ruling comes after Nantz and his ex-wife, Lorrie, testified about the breakdown of their 26-year marriage. Bridgeport Superior Court Judge Howard Owens concluded neither was at fault.

Nantz must pay $72,000 monthly in alimony until he dies or his ex-wife remarries, and another $1,000 weekly in child support for their 15-year-old daughter, Caroline, for the next two years. Lorrie Nantz will get their six-bedroom home in Westport.

Court documents cited Jim Nantz's $3.2 million salary from CBS and other yearly assets.

[READ MORE...]

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Victim #163: Army docks soldier's pay for alimony with no warning

by Stuart Watson / NewsChannel 36
NewsChannel 36
Posted on November 13, 2009 at 9:24 AM
Updated Friday, Nov 13 at 5:02 PM

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Soldiers in the U.S. Army fight to uphold the Constitution.But do they get those same Constitutional rights when they get divorced in a foreign court? The I-team follows the story of a soldier who lost his son and half his pay with no chance to fight.

September 11th compelled Patrick Riley to join the U.S. Army.

"I was 27 - in decent shape - figured I'd go do something for my country," he says.

Between two tours in Iraq, he was stationed in Germany where he met Daniela. Riley and the German woman had a baby boy. Before he left again for Iraq, he married her. "I wouldn't have got married if it hadn't been for my son. I wanted to make sure he was going to be taken care of if anything should happen to me my second tour," he says

But shortly after the family moved stateside - to Shelby, North Carolina - where he was stationed as a recruiter, Riley says, "She left and my whole world turned upside down."

His wife took their son and flew out of Charlotte Douglas Airport back to Germany.  "I can't even explain to you some thoughts - it's just so hard - cause you know two years of not having your son. It's hard," Riley says.

Then - with no notice - no court hearing - no way to contest it, the Army docked more than half of Sergeant Riley's pay. He says it leaves him with about 13-hundred dollars a month. Most of the garnishment was not child support - but alimony.

[READ MORE....]

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Victim #162: At a loss in TX

The short version is... that at the time of my recent divorce, I was a resident and working in a permanent full-time position in Texas. My ex continued to live in Nebraska. We jointly signed a contract to build a home in Texas, but subsequently both filed for divorce. She filed in Nebraska and I filed in Texas. She filed first (I did not know it and had not been served) and I filed a few days later with the intention of serving her.

I was counseled to move forward in Nebraska due to property settlement issues there, but leave the action pending in Texas. The decree in Nebraska now requires that I pay $60K per year for 12 years... which is well past my normal retirement age and a significant hardship for me. The judge in Nebraska also ordered that the action in Texas be terminated.

I appealed in Nebraska, to no avail, and was ordered to pay additional legal fees to her. My legal expense now totals approximately $60K (for her and me). 

This is keeping me awake at night, I don't understand how this could happen. I willingly agreed to a property settlement that left her with over 50% of our estate (she received approx $700K in property, cash, and retirement accounts).

Please help me find a way to deal with the unfair court system in Nebraska. I am at a complete loss. Thank you for any direction that you may be able to provide.

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