A court has ruled in favor of a wife in a divorce worth $800,000, according to reports out of Portland. The decision came from the Maine Supreme Court and it upheld a similar ruling from a lower court. The divorce involved a host of assets, including a lobster business based in Southwest Harbor.
The appeal filed with the Maine Supreme Judicial Court was in regards to a 2016 judgment from the Business and Consumer Docket that said the husband engaged in economic misconduct. The husband reportedly deprived the marital estate of $800,000 in shared income. The judgment was confirmed by the higher court on Aug. 1.
The couple in question married in 1978 and owned multiple businesses during their marriage. Two of those businesses were brought into the appeal filed by the husband. The businesses were Northeastern Seafood Inc. and The Dictator Inc. Sometime between 1997 and 2005, the husband began managing the lobster company. He decided to get rid of credit card processing systems and pocketed cash that was never recorded as business income.
The husband was also accused of opening and drawing on multiple lines of credit beginning in 2013, when the divorce paperwork was originally filed, that totaled some $350,000.
The court’s decision also notes that the husband used income from The Dictator Inc., which owns the boat known as Dictator, to give himself bonuses at the end of the year between 2012 and 2015. Those bonuses totaled $150,000 and $200,000.
Headed for divorce in New York? You can protect your rights and assets by speaking with an experienced divorce attorney about your marriage and how divorce came into the picture.
Source: Mount Desert Islander, “Court finds for wife in $800K divorce dispute,” Mark Good, Aug. 02, 2017