The estranged wife of billionaire Ron Burkle is threatening to dismantle a 1997 post-marital agreement she says unfairly benefited the supermarket magnate, according to divorce papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.
After a contentious year and a half, Janet Burkle has appealed the decision of a private judge who ruled against her last month. She claims the earlier agreement is invalid because it fails to account for certain assets in her $30 million share of the community property, divorce papers say. ... Both sides have taken to personal attacks in detailing their arguments during the divorce, according to filings in the court. In repeated requests to have additional security for their son, Ron Burkle has accused Janet Burkle of being an irresponsible parent. He claims she threatened the child's safety by dating a personal trainer with a criminal record. Janet Burkle, meanwhile, says Ron Burkle has harassed her by conducting intrusive surveillance of her and her then-boyfriend.
"My husband cannot tolerate losing--anything!" Janet Burkle said in a court declaration filed in the divorce. "I know that he views my leaving him as a loss, not necessarily in the personal sense, but in the sense of 'win or lose.' I cannot sense (sic) strongly enough that my husband will do anything to win! This has made him a tremendous success as a business person but not very successful husband or father."
...In court papers, Ron Burkle cites his wife's interest in publicizing his business affairs to the media, as well as his "constitutional right of privacy," as reasons for his requests to seal the documents. "She will use the threat of such dissemination as leverage to attempt to extract a bigger financial settlement in this proceeding," he said in a declaration filed in February 2004.
Burkle says his wife "greatly exaggerated the lavishness of the lifestyle which I lead," but it is, by any measure, a privileged existence.
The Burkles took vacations with some of the area's most prominent individuals, including billionaire Eli Broad and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan. They stayed at the White House and bought Jaguars and BMWs as gifts to one another. They made substantial contributions to local causes such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, where his name is displayed. They regularly hosted dinners for UCLA, which named its Center for International Relations after him.
He is a friend of and investor with former President Bill Clinton, and has held numerous fundraisers for high-profile Democrats, including Sen. John Kerry and former Gov. Gray Davis.
In one declaration, he acknowledges that "many of my present and contemplated business activities directly involve labor unions. I believe that public dissemination of detailed information about my lifestyle (especially as exaggerated by Petitioner) could be very damaging to those relationships by making those union leaders uncomfortable with the concept of being associated by their rank and file members of working closely with someone who purportedly lives that kind of lifestyle."
Much of Janet Burkle's claims alleging inequities in the post-marital agreement center on timing: the draft was prepared just before her husband cut a string of billion-dollar business deals. Burkle, who built his wealth primarily through investments in supermarket chains, saw his net worth skyrocket in 1999 when his investment firm, Yucaipa Cos., sold its holdings in Fred Meyer Inc. to Kroger Co. in a $13 billion deal. Fred Meyer owned the Ralphs, Food 4 Less and Hughes grocery chains.
In divorce filings, Janet Burkle specifically mentions an earlier $4.8 billion merger of Ralphs and Fred Meyer that was announced the same month they signed the post-marital agreement, but which was not included as community property.
Had those business deals been included, as well as several other assets acquired in the years following the 1997 agreement, Janet Burkle might be entitled to a substantially larger share of her husband's wealth, depending upon the date of separation. Under California law, the division of separate and community property occurs after the couple legally separate, a date Janet and Ron Burkle continue to dispute.
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There is also a bunch of stuff keyworded here at FR about Burkle.
Now, for a little trivia tidbit since you seem to be havin’ a good time looking at all of these relationships between the L.A. powerhouses. You have to wonder how they made all that money!
Did you ever see the movie “Billion Dollar Bubble”? It was about a company called Equity Funding Corporation of America, based in Los Angeles (on the 28th floor of the 1900 Avenue of the Stars building in Century City, to be exact). They marketed a package of mutual funds and life insurance to private individuals in the 1960s and 70s. It collapsed in scandal in 1973 after an ex-employee blew the whistle on massive accounting fraud, including a computer system dedicated exclusively to creating and maintaining fictitious insurance policies. Investigation found that from 1964 onward, as many as 100 company employees had engaged in organized deception of investors, auditors, reinsurers and regulatory authorities. The ficticious policies were sold to reinsurers for 180% of the first year premiums. Of the more than $3 billion worth of life insurance ostensibly issued by Equity Funding after that time, more than $2 billion proved to be fictitious.
On November 1, 1973, a Federal grand jury in California indicted 22 Equity Funding executives and employees. When all was said and done, they were all convicted—getting anywhere from 3 months to 8 year sentences. Stanley Goldblum, the President of the firm got 8 years. (Because the Equity Funding Life Insurance Co., a subsidiary, was incorporated in Illinois and other aspects of the case related to that state, Goldblum also received a three to 10-year sentence in Illinois which was allowed to run concurrently with the eight-year federal sentence.)
The company began in 1960 and the fraud was tracked back to having started in 1961. So, it had progressed for at least a decade at the time of the 1973 indictments. In 1969, a Los Angeles mudslide killed the head of the company, Michael J. Riordan, and his partner Stanley Goldblum took the helm. Because of Riordan’s death, he was never prosecuted in the affair but his heirs were sued (unsuccessfully, as I recall) for $26 million that Michael Riordan had benefitted from the fraud. In 1971, Michael Riordan’s wife, the primary beneficiary, became Jacqueline Riordan Getty, marrying George Franklin Getty II, son of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty. Getty died in 1973.
This company, booming from growth due to ficticious insurance policies, also became a hot stock to own. It was pumped by none other than the Michael Milken crew at Drexel Burnham Lambert, who was sued by investors in Equity Funding stock.
Oh, yeah—Michael Riordan was Dick Riordan’s big brother (New York transplants).