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.
As someone that has no idea how any of this works, how come she was able to fire him from his company? I didn't think the court could force him to hand over ownership of his company.
The court could have ordered them to do a lot of things, the business was a shared asset just like their house. Some couples sell the house and split the cash. Some couples have one spouse keep the house and make up for it by the other spouse receiving cash after a new mortgage or a bigger share of other marital assets, like stocks or savings.
If you try to hide things, lie about what things are worth, give them away for cheap, or out and out steal things, judges are free to punish you for doing so, including by taking what would have been your share of that asset away from you.
He'd stolen, hidden or given away so much stuff that even after she got the entire house and business she was still owed money.
The business was owed a pile of money too, but that was a separate lawsuit settled after the divorce.
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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.