Baretta action star, Robert Blake, has filed for divorce from his third wife, Pamela Hudak, just a year after the two strolled into Beverly Hills City Hall to obtain their marriage license. What is the impact of such a short-term marriage on divorce?
And that’s the name of that tune!
According TMZ, actor Robert Blake filed docs in Los Angeles Friday to call the relationship quits. The 85-year-old married Pamela Hudak in Spring of 2017. The couple had known each other for decades and even dated years ago. Blake was previously married to Sondra Kerry from 1961 to 1983.
Florida Divorce
I’ve written about divorce and the length of a marriage before. Florida Statutes actually define what the length of your marriage means. For example, in order to determine alimony, there is a rebuttable presumption in Florida that a short-term marriage is a marriage having a duration of less than 7 years.
Florida Statutes define a moderate-term marriage as a marriage having a duration of greater than 7 years but less than 17 years. And, a long-term marriage is a marriage having a duration of 17 years or greater.
How do you measure the marriage term? In Florida, the length of your marriage is the period of time measured from the date of your marriage until the date of filing of an action to dissolve your marriage.
The Length of your marriage is very important when it comes to determining the kind of duration of alimony payments. For example, permanent alimony is generally for longer term marriages if the statutory criteria are met.
In shorter term marriages and for moderate term marriages, permanent alimony may be considered, but the burden of proof is much higher.
Conversely, bridge-the-gap alimony is generally awarded to allow a person to transition from being married to being single. So, bridge-the-gap alimony is designed for short-term needs. In fact, the length of an award bridge-the-gap alimony may not exceed 2 years.
Durational alimony helps provide a person with economic help for a set period of time after short or moderate length marriages or following a marriage of long duration if there is no ongoing need for support on a permanent basis.
The length of your marriage also factors in to property divisions. When a court divides the marital assets and debts, the court begin with the premise that the distribution should be equal. One of the factors a court can look to in justifying an unequal distribution includes the duration of the marriage.
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.
Blake was accused of murdering his second wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley. Blake was her tenth husband. Bakley was fatally shot while sitting in Blake’s parked car outside a Los Angeles-area restaurant in May 2001.
In 2002, Robert Blake was charged with Bakley’s murder, solicitation of murder, conspiracy and special circumstance of lying in wait. In March 2005, a jury found Blake not guilty of the crimes.
Seven months later, Blake was found liable in a wrongful death lawsuit brought against him by Bakley’s children. Officially, Bakley’s murder remains unsolved.
The TMZ article is here.