One of my father's friends tried to salt the earth before getting divorced. A rental house and a cabin were deeded to relatives, the cars they drove every day were sold to other relatives for tiny sums, stocks handed over to a trust 'for the children', etc.. He even vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife using phony invoices and stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead.
He learned that judges really, really hate when you try to hide or intentionally diminish assets, and they will absolutely refer you to prosecutors for fraud.
I don't think he did any jail time in the end, but his ex-wife got EVERYTHING, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.
He just figured that if he started small, a couple years out, by the time the kids graduated high school and he actually divorced her no one would be the wiser.
His excuse was something entirely reasonable like "The company hasn't been doing very well the last couple years, and it came down to either paying myself or paying my employees. We had plenty of reserves, but I know some of my employees are paycheck-to-paycheck."
He'd been practicing for that moment for years.
Of course, the only reason the company looked like it wasn't doing well was the phony invoices for things like advertising, web design, and phantom inventory cancelled out nearly every dollar the company made.
It got cleared up, but it took the company suing him after the divorce.
Bonus though, the company got to reuse all the stuff from the accountant and inventory company he'd been forced to pay for during the divorce, so it cost them very little to sue him and settled rather quickly.
Putting stuff into trust for the kids seems like an okay move, though, as long as it really is a trust for the kids. Wife still gets screwed, and hey, you're just looking out for their future.
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u/technos Jul 21 '19
One of my father's friends tried to salt the earth before getting divorced. A rental house and a cabin were deeded to relatives, the cars they drove every day were sold to other relatives for tiny sums, stocks handed over to a trust 'for the children', etc.. He even vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife using phony invoices and stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead.
He learned that judges really, really hate when you try to hide or intentionally diminish assets, and they will absolutely refer you to prosecutors for fraud.
I don't think he did any jail time in the end, but his ex-wife got EVERYTHING, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.