Posted on 03/27/2005 5:48:35 PM PST by nickcarraway
A judge has awarded the former wife of a multimillionaire businessman a divorce settlement worth more than $40 million even though she admitted having affairs with her rock-climbing guide and a man she met on a flight to China.
In addition to a $24 million payment, Susan Sosin will keep the couple's $3.6 million Manhattan apartment, $2 million Utah ski house and $800,000 home in Wallkill, New York. But she has to vacate the couple's two mansions in Connecticut and three desert properties in Arizona.
In the divorce granted Wednesday, she also gets to keep $6 million in her brokerage accounts, eight cars and $2.9 million in jewelry, including a ruby piece her husband had bought for her but hadn't given to her prior to their divorce.
Richard Albrecht, attorney for Sosin's husband, Howard, estimated the total value of the award at $43 million, or 27 percent of the estate. She wanted half, he said.
"My opinion is her conduct in this matter affected the award," Albrecht said.
Susan Sosin's lawyer, Frederic J. Siegel, estimated the total value of the award was about $45 million and said his client asked for about 45 percent of the estate.
"By anybody's standards, it's a large amount of money," Siegel said. "Both parties will be able to move on with their lives."
Siegel said both sides were at fault for the divorce and defended his client as a good mother.
Howard Sosin, 54, who founded AIG Financial Products in 1987, filed for divorce after discovering his wife's relationships in February 2003. During an upgrade of their computer system, he found hundreds of e-mails between his wife and her lover, according to testimony.
Susan Sosin, 51, admitted in testimony that she had become intimate with a guide while rock climbing in 1996, though she...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
There certainly seems to be a bit of 'what comes around goes around', but still, the amount this woman received is ridiculous (unless agreed upon in a prenup, which was apparently lacking here).
Same thing I told my ex when she moved out of our house and in with him. "Boyfriend" died in a car wreak while driving back from his ex-girlfriend's house.....
Like my new wife says: "What goes around, comes around..."
LOL. Are you serious?! Is that really a country song?
Society rock climber.
And this is why you should require a prenup if you have a significant amount of money.
sung by jerry reed
Also... "How Can I Get Over You When You Won't Get Out From Under Him?"
The lesson for guys: Don't marry these kinds of chicks.
what would she have gotten under Sharia law...
It must be true - I heard it on the Internet.
Well she can thank the No-Fault divorce laws for her nice cash windfall. It's what put alot of the private eyes out of business.
Her life is far from over...it would be interesting to follow it to see exactly how God works out His justice...
In His time frame...
Howie is a very money smart romance foolish person.
That is hi-larious.
one of my neighbors is madly in love with a woman, but disputes over money led to her moving out late last year.
he was always under-employed, short of money.
then she reappeared on weekends.
next, he re-enlisted in the military, and she's back full-time.
guaranteed an income, she's now back in love.
She got her fair share - the fact that she is a cheater doesn't mean they didn't have a good relationship before then. She gets a comperable amount whether she cheated or he cheated, so in that respect, it is fair.
If he had traded up to a hot young Victoria Secrets model, rather than she being the cheater with a rock climber (what a cliche), he would still be entitled to his fair share and so would she.
That's fair, if unpalatable.
The only difference would be that he would be more reviled by women, who don;t like the idea of their matesreplacing them suddenly with a physically superior, younger model.
I think most women also revile the behavior of the cheating wife too, but women are also more apt to find some sympathy for her also (maybe its sexual solidarity, who knows?). It's easy for them to fill in the blanks - the woman is romantically abandoned, lonely in her marriage, has a sense of emptiness, and a hunky ballsy younger man sweeps her off her feet.
Take a peek at the back cover of romance novels (the women's pornographic industry) from time to time - invariably they focus on an empty and unsatisfied woman finding rapturous pleasure at the hands of an adventirous, exciting, somewhat unstable, and dangerous masculine man. They project that to a case like this and they can convince themselves that it isn't so bad.
To be fair, men would probably outwardly revile the cheating husband also, but would be more apt to find some sympathy for him, too. It's easy for men to fill in the blanks and convince themselves it was a loveless relationship, and that the wife neglected him, that she was more interested in things rather than him and his needs, etc etc. Then this gorgeous doe-eyed younger woman finally gives him the attention he deserves and he naturally recognizes her as a better woman than the one he married. Ditch the witch - it's a no-brainer when framed like that.
Reality is more complicated, of course, and when it happens to us and the people we are close to, we can see it as painful and with not as many blanks being filled in with a self-serving point of view.
As for me, I have my own business and do very well. Any woman who marries me for my money is a moron - she should hit the gym and can easily find a better catch! $$$$$!!! Haha!! Nope, I don't care much about the money - cut me in half and I have the rest of my life to earn it (and more) back. And I am one less a bad spouse - from a certain point of view it is a good deal.
And in any event, whoever did that would also have me as an enemy for the rest of their lives. Now, how smart a deal can that be?
signed,
Hitman of NY ;-)
I'd recommend a prenup even if you're not rich, if it's a second marriage. My wife and I were both widowed. Neither of us was rich, but we both had property we wanted to go to our children by our previous marriages. My lawyer wrote the prenup so if I predecease her, she can live in the house as long as she wants to, or until she dies. Then it goes to my kids. When she dies, her property goes to her kids. We figured this would save a lot of fussing. Where there's a will there's an heir!
"I've Got Tears In My Ears From Lying On My Back And Crying All Night Over You."
You misunderstand. All the article says is that they met when she was married to someone else. Not that they began an affair back then.
As for her prior failed marriage, for all we know she could have been the wronged party and not morally at fault.
Based on this all we know is that she was married to someone else when they met, and that she later divorced that person.
That doesn't mean he was the reason they divorced. It doesn't mean she cheated with him at the time.
On the other hand, it doesn't mean she didn't. ;-)
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