Gerald Nissenbaum - Sex, Love, and Money: Revenge and Ruin in the World of High-Stakes Divorce

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Table of Contents

ALSO BY JOHN SEDGWICK

NONFICTION

Night Vision
Rich Kids
The Peaceable Kingdom

FICTION

The Dark House
The Education of Mrs. Bemis

MEMOIR

In My Blood

To my amazing wife and law partner, Madeline Marie Celletti, with love

G.N.

To A.G., with love and gratitude.

J.S.

All the stories in this book are true. The characters existed. The events happened. Most of the information is in public records. Even so, to avoid disclosure of items that remain within the attorney-client privilege, I altered a variety of identifying details, including names, places, and merged facts from one case with another. In the complex cases, the legal procedures have been streamlined and other issues left on the cutting-room floor, lest they obscure the fundamental issues at hand. Aside from these cosmetic changes, the tales will unfold in this book exactly as they occurred, with all the quirks, mayhem, and drama that have made divorce law such a flavorful career for me for more than forty years.

G.N.

Part One

THE SCENE

CHAPTER ONE

SOME YEARS AGO, A CLIENT OF MINE, ARNOLD BURGHART, CALLED me in a panic. Arnold was an older man, nearing seventy, somewhat wizened with years, and I was afraid he might have a heart attack. Hed served in the army in World War II, and was one of the poor bastards sent to Nevada to witness the first atomic testing. He said the radiation never affected him, but it couldnt have felt good to know that the U.S. government had made him a human guinea pig. Now he ran a small ad agency here in Massachusetts. His wife, Cheri, was an ice dancer. A very fit, very lithe, very clever woman, maybe fifteen years younger than him, she had long, flowing blond hair that flapped behind her when she skated. He had shown me pictures. He was nuts about her. And I was afraid that was why he was so upset now.

Arnie, calm down, I told him. Whats the matter?

Shes moved out.

This was no huge surprise. Cheri had left him once before, maybe a year back, and shed been talking divorce off and on since.

What did she take this time?

Last time, shed drained their savings and checking accounts. Id had to rush into court to tie up the rest of Arnolds money so she couldnt make off with everything. But then they reconciled a few weeks later, Cheri full of tears and apologies, and Arnold told me to forget about the courts. He was so besotted with Cheri, he simply couldnt see what she was about. Id wanted to split their liquid assets fifty-fiftyhalf in his name, half in hersjust in case. That way, if she split again, she could only take her half, which shed probably get in a divorce settlement anyway. But Arnold said no, no, no. Shed never do that. She loved him.

Right, I said.

That was a year ago. Now he could hardly breathe.

Arnie, I repeated. What did she take this time?

Everything. He could barely speak.

Everything? What do you mean, everything?

Everything everything. All my bank accounts are empty. He had four of them. Even the home equity line. Maxed out.

Whatd she do with it?

She bought a fucking condo. Paid for it in cash, Jerry. My cash!

Okay, I said, trying to calm him down. She bought a condo.

And she took all the furniture!

Youre kidding.

I wish. I got home last night, and the whole house was empty. From the attic to the basement. Empty. The floors were bare, Jerry. The walls. Nothing! My art, my photographs. She didnt leave me so much as a soupspoon. Even my clothes are gone.

Jesuseverything? It was hard to imagine anyone going this far, even Cheri.

Well, no, not everything. She did leave me something.

And whats that?

Arnie didnt speak for a second, and I thought that maybe there was something wrong with his heart.

Arnie? I asked.

A spaghetti pot, he said. She left me a spaghetti pot. One of those big black ones. She left it for me in the middle of the front hall. Couldnt miss it. It was the only thing in the whole goddamn house. And I looked in it, and guess what.

What?

There was a penny. A single fucking solitary fucking penny.

So thats how it happened to Arnold. The love of his life left him a penny, and a pot to piss in.

IT CAN COME SUDDENLY, IN A TERRIFYING RUSH; OR IT CAN DAWN ON you slowly, over time. But for every divorcing couple there is a moment when the truth hits: the marriage is over. Whether you leave or are left, its a shock. The life you built with your spousewith the beautiful house, the children, the minivan, the dog, the vacations, the friendsis gone. Over. Done. Its like a death. Or, worse, a death in life. Because, after all, you are technically still alive. Its just that everything has been turned upside down and inside out, and now you dont know whereor whoyou are. The person you considered your closest confidant and best friend has changed into an untrustworthy snake and your worst enemy.

It happened to my charming but frumpy client Gail Langer when she looked over the American Express bill while her husband, Philip, was off in Tokyo on an extended business trip. She noticed some charges that were made at Bloomingdales in New Yorklingeriewhich was odd. So far as she knew, Philip hadnt been anywhere near New York, and he hadnt given her any lingerie. Convinced that it was some mistake, Gail called the store. The clerk assured her Philip Langer had purchased a pair of lacy bras and a camisole on the date listed on the bill. And while he was at it, they told Gail, hed entered his name into the stores bridal registry. Gail started to say that was ridiculousuntil the clerk told her the name of the bride. It was her husbands law partner.

Thats how it goes, especially if youre on the receiving end. The best part of your life becomes the worst part of your life. Love turns to hate, the grinding, burning kind that has put more than a few of my clients in the hospital and placed their former mates at risk of serious injury or worse. Depressed and angry, Gail did not handle the situation well at all.

But she merely wanted to screw her husband to the wall financially. Another of my clients, Priscilla, wasnt so lucky. She ended up dead in her Mercedes, with a gun in her hand and a bullet in her temple. The cops called it a suicide; I call it murder. Her husband ran a cab company in Boston. He didnt like that she objected to his screwing around, and he didnt want to mess with a divorce settlement or risk her tipping off the IRS about the true state of his finances. And he knew the kind of people who could fix all that.

Of course, once you calm down, if you ever calm down, the real torture begins: dividing the assets, selling the house, pleading your case to some overworked thirty-year-old guardian ad litem who decides who gets your kids and on what terms, fighting over the pets (no joke: I worked for months on a custody fight over a Great Dane named Rajah), negotiating child support payments, making alimony payments, dragging yourself to a therapist and your kids to child psychiatrists, and allowing some black-robed judge to have the last word on your future.

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