Here’s a cautionary tale for all spouses who think that the word “settlement” in divorce settlement means final, done,finito: don’t be so hasty. Just ask Frank McCourt.
Frank McCourt, who until his legendarily bitter, acrimonious divorce was primarily known for being the owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers (which he recently sold for a cool $2 billion), recently received a motion from his ex Jamie McCourt in which she claimed that he committed fraud by grossly underestimating, during their prolonged divorce settlement negotiations, the value of the baseball franchise by well over a billion dollars.
The McCourt’s put an end to their marriage in 2010, at which time Jamie McCourt received $131 million in the settlement. However, in the new motion, she claims that her ex’s true assets after the sale of the Dodgers, minus debts, were $1.7 billion – or about 10 times the amount that she received. She’s also claiming that even if the alleged imbalance is the result of mistakes instead of fraud, the settlement should nevertheless be set aside.
“[My client] thought very long and very hard about whether to file this motion, but that after other means failed, she returned to court,” Jamie McCourt’s family lawyer Bertram Fields told The Associated Press. “Mr. McCourt got about 93 percent of the family assets, and Mrs. McCourt got about 7 percent. We would’ve much preferred to have this massive imbalance resolved with some modification, but we got no response to that approach. We didn’t want to have more family litigation, but now it’s up to the court.”
A hearing is scheduled on November 16 to determine if, and what, the next steps are for this embattled ex-couple who seem to have a few more pitches and swings to go before this extra innings divorce records its final out.
Source: http://www.nation.time.com
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