Tag: Cheating and Divorce

Texting and Divorce

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

A wife in Taiwan was recently granted a divorce from her husband, who she accused of ignoring her — and her unanswered text messages were a key piece of evidence. Ghosting, as it is called, is a way of ending a relationship by ignoring communications.

Ghosting

In the Taiwan case, the wife sent her husband messages via the Line app for six months. The messages were marked as read — meaning he presumably opened and read them — and yet the wife rarely, if ever, got a reply.

At one point, the wife sent her husband messages saying she was in the emergency room and demanding to know why he wasn’t answering her messages.

The judge in the Taiwan family court saw the unanswered messages (and the terse, unemotional replies the wife did occasionally get) and concluded the wife had enough grounds for a divorce:

“The defendant did not inquire about the plaintiff, and the information sent by the plaintiff was read but not replied to. The couple’s marriage is beyond repair.”

Divorce

Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. I’ve written about no-fault divorces in Florida before. The only ground you need to file for divorce in Florida is to prove your marriage is “irretrievably broken.” But is no fault divorce the reason the United States has a high divorce rate? Many people think so, and want to return to the old “fault” system to promote families.

The divorce process is really no mystery. If you or your spouse has decided to file for divorce in Florida, at least one of you must be a resident of the state or a member of an armed force stationed in the state. Proving fault, of course, is not required.

Divorce is called a “dissolution of marriage” in Florida, and begin when you or your spouse files a “Petition for Dissolution of Marriage” with the circuit court. Any assets and debts amassed during the marriage, referred to as “marital assets,” will be divided “equitably”. Assets you had before marriage may be considered “non-marital assets”. Judges will divide marital assets equally, unless there is a basis for unequal distribution, and your non-marital property is set aside.

Alimony is an extension of the obligation for spouses to support each other financially during the marriage. In Florida, a court can order alimony, and will look at statutory factors such as the standard of living during the marriage; the length of the marriage; and the age and physical condition of each spouse.

If children are involved, the court will also make a decision based on what is in the “best interests” of the child. Unless there is a reason that it would be detrimental to your child’s upbringing, the court will grant shared responsibility.

Additionally, the court will calculate your child support based on our statutory guidelines that attorneys use to properly calculate the child support needed for a child and how much each parent has to pay.

Answer Your Texts

The dissolution of marriage procedure, once it is completed will change your taxes. Property transfers, the taxability of alimony payments, allocating the federal; dependency deduction for children may all have tax impacts. Working with an accountant and lawyer will help you avoid costly mistakes.

Answering your spouse’s texts might also help.

The NextWeb article is here.

 

Divorce Extortion

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Producer and director, Stephen Belafonte, and Spice Girl Melanie Brown have a daughter together. Belafonte just gave the LAPD an audiotape of someone trying to extort him for a million dollars while he goes through his divorce.Recorded on March 20, the phone call features a woman who tells Belafonte, ‘I’m gonna take you down’ unless she’s paid $500,000 within 48 hours, a fee that’s later upped to $1m.

The woman in the recording says:

‘I want a million bucks in my account in two days otherwise you’re f***ed, it’s your choice.

 

‘I swear to God I’m gonna talk so much sh*t about you, you have no idea, it’s your choice. And it’s gonna be really really bad.’

During the call, it is also alleged ‘people’ representing Belafonte’s estranged wife Mel B asked Contreras to take the ‘ugly’ story to the media.

Extortion

In divorce, it is easy to cross the line from harmless threats to the crime of extortion. The fact remains that in Florida, it is a second-degree felony to threaten to expose another for the commission of any crime or offense for one’s own pecuniary advantage.

File this under how not to act in divorce, a subject that I’ve written about many times before: from not wearing Nazi uniforms into court, to not getting in fights with the judge.

There can be little doubt that if Belafonte’s allegations are true, and that a spouse was recorded threatening to disclose confidential information in exchange for money, Florida’s extortion statute could cover the kind of situation facing him.

Divorce & Extortion

Very often in divorce, it is very easy for a spouse to cross the line between idle threats and criminal extortion. How? There are several examples. One which comes to mind, is taxes. It is typical for spouses to threaten to report the other spouse to the IRS for underpayment of taxes unless money is paid to keep the silence.

Another very common extortion technique – which is especially true these days – is to issue a threat to report a spouse to immigration officials. One spouse will to use the threat of deportation unless money is paid in a settlement. This has become more common these days as the country cracks down on illegal immigration.

Extortion also happens when signing settlement agreements. For example, spouses sometimes threaten that if the other spouse does not sign the settlement agreement, the other spouse will tell the children about infidelity, or something else to ruin what reputation the spouse has.

Belafonte’s Case

Contreras – who has a 12-year-old daughter Giselle with Belafonte – has denied the recording is authentic.

‘This audio is clearly not me. Stephen is falsifying stories because I have told the press the truth,’ Contreras told TMZ.

An LAPD investigative report obtained by DailyMail.com echoes TMZ, stating Contreras called Belafonte at 10pm on March 20, which is also the day Mel B filed for divorce.

In the police report filed on Thursday, the officer completing the document wrote: ‘Susp called victim and demanded $1million deposited into her account or she would disclose personal information to media.’

The alleged audio tape is the latest revelation in Mel B and Stephen Belafonte’s messy divorce proceedings, which has played out in the tabloid media since the former Spice Girl filed for divorce on March 20, citing ‘irreconcilable differences.

The Metro article is available here.

 

Cheating and No-Fault Divorces

Posted by Ron Kauffman on

Not every state has no-fault divorce. That means you have to prove grounds, such as infidelity, and your divorce could take a decade or more. Why? Because you can waive grounds for divorce.

Mississippi is one of only two states without a true “no-fault divorce” law. If one spouse doesn’t want a divorce, he or she can often stave one off for a long time. In one reported case, it was more than a decade.

As WTSP in Tampa Bay reports, there’s an effort in the Mississippi Legislature to make some reforms to their divorce laws. But such efforts have failed in the past. A measure to create a “no-fault” divorce based on length of separation has already been watered down early in the legislative process this session.

Getting a divorce in Mississippi is difficult and expensive. Lawmakers and the religious lobby in this Bible Belt state have been reluctant to make it any easier or cheaper, mainly in efforts to uphold the institution and sanctity of marriage.

Yet, Mississippi still ranks continually near the top of states in its divorce rate — seventh highest in one recent study.

Experts say Mississippi’s antiquated divorce laws, little changed over a century, put low-income people at a disadvantage — particularly homemakers who don’t have resources to fight a lengthy court battle. They likely hurt the state’s overall economy, clog the courts and cost taxpayers.

In Mississippi, you still have to prove grounds for divorce, so a spouse who condones, or forgives marital fault can’t get a divorce unless the conduct happens again.

In a case of infidelity then, the non-cheating spouse who reconciles with the cheating spouse, may be found to have condoned the infidelity; and may have lost the grounds for divorce until it  happens again.

No-fault laws are the result of trying to change the way divorces played out in court. No fault laws have reduced the number of feuding couples who felt the need to resort to distorted facts, lies, and the need to focus the trial on who did what to whom.

I’ve written about no-fault divorce before. Florida abolished fault as grounds for filing a divorce. The only reason you need to file for divorce in Florida is that the marriage is “irretrievably broken.” But as the case of Mississippi shows, in other states, that is not always the case.

The WTSP article is here.

Cheating and Divorce

Posted by admin on

On behalf of Ronald H. Kauffman, P.A. posted in Divorce on Monday, April 21, 2014.

Cheating on your spouse isn’t only a crime in the eyes of your spouse, in Florida, it’s a crime punishable by a fine or even jail time. Can it impact your divorce?

USA Today reports that the New Hampshire legislature voted last week to repeal its anti-adultery law, sending the bill to the governor, who is likely to sign it into law. Last year, Colorado repealed its anti-adultery law.

Anti-adultery laws are rarely enforced, and are properly seen as a vestige of our country’s Puritanical beginnings, says Naomi Cahn, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School.

In Florida, whoever lives in an open state of adultery shall be guilty of a misdemeanor of the second degree. Where either of the parties living in an open state of adultery is married, both parties shall be deemed to be guilty of the offense.

I’ve written about the impact of cheating and divorce before. In practical terms, adultery poses very little threat of prosecution, but it could have other consequences.

Cheating on your spouse can even be grounds for losing your job. This is particularly true in the military, where adultery has a maximum punishment of a dishonorable discharge.

Chapter 61 discusses the “the moral fitness of the parents” as one of the factors the court considers in determining the best interests of a child.

Adultery may impact the division of property. Proof that one spouse intentionally wasted marital assets could be seen as dissipation of assets.

Adultery of either spouse could be a factor in determining the amount of alimony, if any, to be awarded.

Sometimes, evidence of adultery comes into evidence. Sometimes, it doesn’t. In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that sexual activity between consenting adults is legal. Whether Lawrence applies to anti-adultery laws is unknown.

The USA Today article can be read here.