Valuable Divorce Advise

Jeff Landers, Contributor

I write for women who are going through a financially complex divorce.

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5/22/2012 @ 10:23AM |7,710 views

How Some Men Are Upending Domestic Violence Laws to Scam an Advantage in Divorce

 

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Last month, I discussed the top six underhanded tactics used by husbands during divorce.

As a quick recap, let me remind you that those dirty tricks are:

• “Conflicting out” all the top divorce lawyers.
• Stalling and delaying.
• Exerting pressure to proceed too quickly.
• Denying access to financial resources.
• Hiding assets.
• Failing to pay court-ordered support or refusing to relinquish assets.

Now, I’d like to add to that list with two more devious strategies, both of which hinge on the manipulation of domestic violence laws –the very laws that, ironically, were implemented to protect women, not harm them. Here are the two “new” underhanded tactics which divorce professionals are seeing crop up with increasing frequency:

1. Husbands claiming their wives are abusers.

This ploy is just as ugly as it sounds. Some men are upending domestic violence laws so that their wives (who are the true victims) are arrested, prosecuted and even sentenced as abusers.

In the foreword to the new book, Hanging On By My Fingernails: Surviving the New Divorce Gamesmanship, and How a Scratch Can Land You in Jail, written by Janie McQueen, Tamara N. Holder, a Chicago criminal defense attorney, explains how the scam works:

“Unfortunately, many abusive men have learned to reshape domestic violence laws into another weapon of abuse. They are turning police and court protections upside down: The abusers themselves call 9-1-1; they have the women arrested for domestic violence; and then they do everything they can to try to have the women prosecuted and sentenced. In this way, the true victim is painted as the abuser.

There is a deeper motivation in using this ploy; to show a pattern of “violent conduct” on the woman’s part so that the abuser can use it as evidence against her in a divorce or child custody battle. And this form of abuse is permanent. A bruise heals after a few days, but a conviction for a violent crime mars her record forever.

The set-up: A couple has a fight. Either the wife calls 9-1-1 in a desperate plea for police intervention, or the husband makes the call first in a preemptive attack. When the police arrive, the woman is visibly upset. The man, on the other hand, is extremely calm as he switches off his anger. The husband tells the police that his wife is delusional, crazy, and violent. Depending on how convincing the man’s story is to the police officer, and the state’s law on domestic violence, either both people are arrested or the woman is arrested.

In the case of a dual arrest, which some states discourage, the woman often tells prosecutors she doesn’t want to testify against her husband, so the case is dismissed. Meanwhile, the husband is determined that she be prosecuted. Instead of the prosecutors looking into the history of the relationship before proceeding with the criminal case, they move full speed ahead. The wife is usually cut off from her husband’s financial support so she cannot pay for defense against him. As a result, she is forced to take a plea to the charges because she cannot afford to defend herself. She fears taking the case to trial, losing, and going to jail.”

Just last month, the divorce between Pro Football Hall of Famer Deion Sanders and his wife Pilar made headlines when police responded to a disturbance call at the Sanders’ home.  The next day, Pilar was arrested and charged with simple assault. Now, her attorney says Pilar’s arrest following allegations that she attacked the former NFL cornerback was “a complete setup.”

Clearly, the courts will have to decide who’s guilty of what in the Sanders’ case, but the attorneys I talk to tell me circumstances like these are becoming more and more prevalent. Sadly, an arrest ploy as Ms. Holder describes above can have devastating consequences for the woman involved, including criminal trials, lingering criminal records, distorted custody battles and financial losses.

“Victims of these increasingly common set-ups face criminal charges alongside their emotionally depleting divorce and custody cases, which are, of course, by now stacked against them,” Janie McQueen, the author of Hanging On By My Fingernails: Surviving the New Divorce Gamesmanship, and How a Scratch Can Land You in Jail, told me. “Even if the victim is able to gather the resources to hire a criminal defense attorney and get the charges dropped, she remains tied up with clearing her name and repairing all the damage while her spouse goes about setting up the rest of the divorce.”

Ms. McQueen, a former crime reporter, was once a victim of these ploys herself.

“There is far more to this ploy than someone going from minding her household to sitting in jail,” she explained. “The emotional trauma can’t be overstated. What is happening is, the abuser is using the system to perpetuate the abuse. She thinks: who, then, is on her side?”

Unfortunately, these scams undermine sound public policy and create confusion that, paradoxically, ends up protecting abusers.

“Domestic violence issues have become so heated and politicized that it’s difficult to make people even listen to what is really going on, to realize there is a difference between a true DV situation and this scam that manipulates the stiff arrest laws,” Ms. McQueen concluded. “This is a situation that carries a ‘guilty until proven innocent’ stigma. Even strong proponents of the Violence Against Women Act seem not to understand this backlash effect of the perpetrator playing the victim, or they perceive exposure of these very real set-ups as criticism that would weaken their lobbying efforts. I think swift arrest laws through VAWA are needed—but we need to figure out how to tweak the system to identify the true perpetrator.”

2. Coerced debt.

As the name implies, “coerced debt” occurs when the abuser in a violent relationship uses fraud or coercion to obtain credit in the victim’s name. For example, the abuser (typically the husband) might:

• Secretly open credit card accounts in the victim’s name
• Trick the victim into relinquishing her rights to certain marital assets
• Coerce the victim into signing financial documents

As a result, the victims of coerced debt often are left with the devastating consequences of negative credit. They have difficulty opening credit card accounts, obtaining loans, renting, even finding a job –not to mention the time and expense required for credit repair.

The problem of coerced debt is quickly emerging as a significant threat for divorcing women, and unfortunately, it appears that current laws are far from sufficient to deal with this growing problem. In fact, current laws may be exacerbating the problem. As Angela Littwin explains in Coerced Debt: The Role of Consumer Credit In Domestic Violence:

“For its part, the credit reporting system is singularly unprepared to handle issues at the intersection of debt and domestic violence. In theory, a credit report should be an accurate testament to an individual’s creditworthiness. But in practice, credit reports are notoriously error-laden, and there are three major reporting bureaus, which each require separate advocacy. Most importantly for survivors of coerced debt, the forums available for resolving these errors are lacking in any procedure by which a consumer can argue that an item on her report does not predict her future riskiness as a borrower, tenant, or employee.

In other words, marriage law does not allow for the resolution of coerced debt, because creditors are involved. And the credit system – to the extent that it acknowledges family issues at all – operates under the assumption that family law has already settled any marriage- or relationship-based questions of legal rights and duties. The legal system that acknowledges domestic violence cannot effectively adjudicate matters of consumer debt, and the consumer credit system currently has no mechanism for addressing questions of domestic violence.

This combination of legal gaps has left victims of coerced debt in an untenable position. Debt about which they did not know or to which they did not consent is marring their credit reports and increasing their already-high barriers to obtaining housing and employment – two essential building blocks to economic self-sufficiency. In this way, coerced debt may be directly contributing to domestic violence, by undermining victims’ ability to leave and remain free of abusive relationships.”

Even under the best of circumstances, divorce is complicated and emotionally trying. For women who are victims of abuse, the process is exponentially more difficult –and growing more so, now that husbands are trying to manipulate domestic violence laws and coerce debt. As I have mentioned in a previous article, if you are involved in an abusive relationship, please seek help. There are community-based organizations, private counselors and therapists and other professionals who can offer the immediate assistance you need. They can help you create a plan that will keep you and your children safe. Once you are safe, you can start to take even more steps toward a brighter and financially secure future.

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All articles/blog posts are for informational purposes only, and do not constitute legal advice. If you require legal advice, retain a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who is not an attorney.

For further information, please go to our website at:http://www.BedrockDivorce.com or email Jeff at:Landers@BedrockDivorce.com.

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4/17/2012 @ 11:40AM |9,002 views

How "Conflicting Out" Top Divorce Attorneys Can Impact Your Divorce

 

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Heidi Klum & Seal: Getty Images via @daylife

I am not in favor of dirty tricks during divorce. However, pretending they never happen doesn’t do anyone any good, either.

Divorcing women need to understand the full range of tactics some husbands use, and they need to be proactive –not reactive –as they work to secure the best possible divorce settlement. To that end, if you are contemplating divorce, you need to know about a tactic I see quite often in financially complex divorce cases:

“Conflicting out” all the top divorce lawyers

By “conflicting out” certain attorneys, your husband can make it difficult for you to hire the lawyer that’s best for you. Here’s how it works: He makes appointments with all the top lawyers in your area. Then, he meets with each one –but only for a short time. All he needs to do during those meeting is share enough information to create an attorney-client relationship. Once he does, that particular attorney will be prohibited from representing you.

Of course, your husband doesn’t actually have to hire any of these attorneys. The entire goal with this tactic is to “conflict out” attorneys so they cannot be hired by you.

Celebrities frequently use this strategy –and men aren’t the only ones that do. In fact, Heidi Klum made headlines earlier this year for divorce attorney “shopping” in Los Angeles. Of course, Heidi simply may have been interviewing divorce attorneys to find the most qualified and the one she would be most comfortable with – a perfectly legitimate endeavor.

The lesson here is simple. Don’t procrastinate when hiring a divorce attorney. If you do, you could miss out on the opportunity to retain a great lawyer!

What are some other tactics used by husbands during a divorce?

Don’t get me wrong. Not all divorces are bitter battles. Some are relatively amicable, and the vast majority are settled outside the courts. However, atBedrock Divorce Advisors we’ve seen quite a few underhanded financial and legal tactics employed by husbands or their divorce teams.

Many husbands will also:

Stall and delay. By repeatedly rescheduling court hearings and/or filing excessive motions and requests for evidence, a husband can drive up his wife’s legal costs and stretch out the time during which she must cover living expenses. In these cases, the husband is hoping she’ll run out of money and be forced to agree to his settlement offer, which is often extremely unfavorable to her.

Exert pressure to proceed too quickly. A husband who wants his wife to agree to a “quick” settlement may have something to hide. For instance, very early in the process, the husband’s attorney may send over a settlement proposal for the wife to review and counter.  Usually, this means the husband just wants to get the divorce over and done with quickly, and he wants his wife to settle for what appears to be a reasonable offer.  The problem, of course, is that in many cases, she has not received all the discovery documents requested, so she doesn’t have complete knowledge about key financial matters, such as marital assets, income sources, expenses, what they owe and what’s owed them.

Rushing to get a settlement is especially sneaky if the husband has been busy hiding assets and/or income and now he is trying to get her to agree to a 50-50 split of only a portion of their total assets!

Deny access to financial resources. Unfortunately, many married women do not take a hands-on approach to the family finances. During a divorce, a husband can use her lack of knowledge to his advantage. He can ensure that only he can access family funds, cut off his wife’s credit cards, move funds out of family accounts, etc. Actions like these can leave his wife without the money necessary to buy groceries, much less hire the right divorce team to represent her…while he hires an excellent team to represent him.

This is especially problematic for abused women who live in constant fear of harm—to themselves and/or their children.

Hide assets. As I have discussed at length in earlier blog posts (see 21 Signs That Your Husband May Be Hiding Marital Assets During Your Divorce andDivorcing Women: Here’s Where Husbands Typically Hide Assets), hiding assets during a divorce is sneaky, unethical and illegal –but it happens much more frequently than most women expect.

Fail to pay court-ordered support or refuse to relinquish assets.Husbands who don’t follow court orders are breaking the law –and they force their wives to try to extract the promised payments at considerable legal cost long after the divorce is over. What’s more, all this financial and legal wrangling is terribly time-consuming. Some women have to take time off from work to deal with these issues, and that can put their jobs in jeopardy. Sadly, many family courts do a poor job enforcing such orders, even when a woman follows its requirements to the letter, and even for a well-meaning judge, deception on the part of an ex-husband can be difficult to decipher or prove.

Because there are so many different dirty tricks, I recommend that women maintain their own emergency fund in a separate bank account, even if divorce has never entered their minds. If you are contemplating divorce, make sure you start organizing your personal finances and important documentsunder the guidance of a qualified divorce financial strategist.  During the divorce, you’ll need to Think Financially, Not Emotionally® so you can keep your finances intact while planning for a secure financial future.

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All articles/blog posts are for informational purposes only, and do not constitute legal advice. If you require legal advice, retain a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who is not an attorney.

For further information, please go to our website at:http://www.BedrockDivorce.com or email Jeff at:Landers@BedrockDivorce.com.

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3/20/2012 @ 10:11AM |8,225 views

21 Signs That Your Husband May Be Hiding Marital Assets During Your Divorce

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Stacks of money (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last week, while my post about hidden assets was racking up thousands of readers, news broke that a Russian billionaire allegedly bought an $88 million apartmentas a ploy to scam his wife during their divorce.

To me, these related –albeit completely independent –events are evidence of two key points: 1) The topic of husbands hiding assets hits a nerve with many women, and 2) Husbands hide assets (or at least, try to hide assets) much more frequently than most wives expect.

So, let’s keep this conversation going.

Today, I’d like to dig a little deeper into the topic of hidden assets, and to do so, I’ve enlisted the help of my colleague, Miles Mason, Sr., JD, CPA, founder of Miles Mason Family Law Group, PLC, in Memphis, Tennessee, and author of The Forensic Accounting Deskbook: A Practical Guide to Financial Investigation and Analysis for Family Lawyers, published by the American Bar Association.

As Miles points out, it’s important to shine a spotlight on the topic of hiding assets because divorcing women are often too shy or intimidated to report their husbands’ dirty tricks. Why? Because divorce victims mirror fraud victims.

“Fraud victims are often too embarrassed to report the crime,” Miles explains. ”Spouses married to persons lying, cheating and stealing in the divorce become demoralized. The spouse counts on the victim’s will breaking down. Victims blame themselves and want to settle for less than a reasonable settlement.”

If you’re divorcing, please don’t let that happen to you. Educate yourself and lean on the expertise of a qualified divorce team to help you get the settlement you deserve. To help you wrap your arms around this complicated topic, here are a few of “the basics” Miles teaches his clients:

Red flags seem obvious, once you know what to look for. You may have good reason to be suspicious if your husband:

• Maintains complete control of bank account information and online passwords.

• Is secretive about financial affairs.

• Owns a P.O. box or private mail drop box, which receives account statements and bills.

• Has meaningful unreimbursed business account expenses.

• Deletes one or more personal financial programs, Quicken or Quickbooks.

• Says the computer containing important financial records has mysteriously “crashed.” Then, he removes the hard drive for a data retrieval attempt, and it’s never to be seen again.

• Acts pushy when obtaining signatures on important documents, like tax returns and deeds. “I need to get this to our accountant today,” he insists.

• Proposes an execution of mutual durable power of attorneys for “estate planning” purposes.

• Enjoys out-of-town business junkets with his befriended, slippery financial advisor.

• Develops SIDS (Sudden Income Deficit Syndrome). “My business is failing” suddenly crops up.

• Suffers an income decrease without a corresponding reduction of expenses.

• Binges on unusual purchases of flashy items, such as a car and jewelry.

• Reports a dramatic decrease in value of marital and/or business investments.

• Owns multiple cell phones or numbers over a relatively short period of time.

• Makes frequent trips to countries with relaxed banking laws.

• Exhibits childish greed and claims of entitlement.

• Makes unusual purchases of toys or art that could be sold later.

• Starts drawing on large amounts of debt.

• Is involved in drug abuse.

• Gambles more frequently than usual and is placing money “on account” with casinos.

• Opens multiple business or personal bank accounts without obvious reasons for having that many.

A husband who hides assets usually has very specific, predictable objectives. In general terms, his goals are to:

1. Hide, understate, or undervalue certain assets,

2. Overstate debts,

3. Report lower than actual revenue, and/or

4. Report higher than actual expenses.

Most tactics are predictable, too. Here are a few of the most predictable strategies Miles has seen, along with the advantages and disadvantages for each:

• Hoarding unrecorded cash. Advantage: Removing cash (currency) lacks a paper trail, and offshore bank accounts are relatively easy (from a legal standpoint) to open. Disadvantage: Laundering over $100,000 in currency can be time consuming and will likely require travel. Depending on the circumstances, this tactic could involve the very serious criminal acts of money laundering, violation of cash transfer reporting requirements, federal income tax fraud and perjury.

• Secreting already recorded cash receipts. Advantage: This can be completed as part of a complex accounting scheme, which may be too complicated or expensive to discover. Disadvantage: Once cash is recorded, its absence or transfer is discoverable.

• Understating revenue. Advantage: The business owner has lots of options from which to choose. Some are simple and easy. Deferring revenue by manipulating the timing of revenue or accounts receivable may not constitute tax fraud. Disadvantage: Depending on the business owner’s sophistication, this can require a fairly predictable co-conspirator. If the co-conspirator is placed under oath, the scheme could result in perjury charges for the husband.

Scams to hide money often involve handing cash or transferring ownership of valuable assets to buddies, siblings, or parents to hold until sometime after the divorce is final. These schemes usually include deceptive cover stories, financial statement manipulation and lying under oath. Sometimes the stories even become more intricate, involving failing businesses, gambling addictions and other personal failures.

“The more believable the story is that the money is gone, the more likely the victim will give up looking for it,” Miles says.

Let’s consider an example. Pretend your husband’s business owns a vacant building. Your husband may complain that the property taxes are long overdue and the building is worth less than the cost of paying them. Then, prior to the divorce filing, he brags that the business sold the building to a stupid investor who is now “stuck” with having to pay the overdue taxes. At first this may sound like a great deal: the business is rid of the purported albatross, and the business and marital estate is purportedly saved thousands of dollars. But, the reality is quite different. The taxes were never behind, and the purchaser was your husband’s nefarious financial advisor and personal friend. The transfer was recorded, but the handshake deal will result in your husband and his friend splitting the profits from its sale a year or so after the divorce.

As I pointed out last week, timing is critical to detect schemes using financial statement manipulation, and benchmarks are key. Ideally, a woman must be financially aware and involved from the onset of her marriage. Consistent participation from the start is critically important because: 1) If your husband has been hiding income/assets over years or decades, it will become virtually impossible to trace/find them, and 2) Being financially aware and involved helps form the foundation of happy marriages where a divorce is not even a possibility. (If your husband becomes incapacitated or dies, a working knowledge of your assets/liabilities and income/expenses and where all your accounts and important documents are located will be vitally important.)

Remember, your husband doesn’t have to be a billionaire to be guilty of hiding assets. Dirty tricks happen more often than women expect, and you’ll need to Think Financially, Not Emotionally® so you can keep your finances intact during the divorce proceedings while you plan for a secure financial future post-divorce, as well.

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Jeffrey A. Landers, CDFA™ is a Divorce Financial Strategist™ and the founder of Bedrock Divorce Advisors, LLC (http://www.BedrockDivorce.com ), a divorce financial strategy firm that exclusively works with women across the nation, who are going through, or might be going through, a financially complicated divorce.

He also advises happily married women who have seen their friends blindsided by a divorce initiated by their husbands and wonder (wisely) how financially vulnerable they’d be in that situation. Jeff developed the nation’s first Just in Case(TM): Secure Your Financial Future, a one-hour program, which quickly shows married women how to be prepared in the event of a future divorce with immediate, practical steps. He can be reached atLanders@BedrockDivorce.com.

All articles/blog posts are for informational purposes only, and do not constitute legal advice. If you require legal advice, retain a lawyer licensed in your jurisdiction. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author, who is not an attorney.

Follow Jeffrey A. Landers on Twitter:http://www.twitter.com/Bedrock_Divorce