Strong Advocate: The Life of a Trial Lawyer

11. Love, Marriage, and Fraud

161 11 Love, Marriage, and Fraud Our law practice continued to grow in the next decade but no case then proved more significant than the one covered in this chapter.Its origins began on September 4,1981,when our receptionist told me that two rather somber and depressed-looking ladies were in the lobby. They had no appointment, preferred not to tell the receptionist their names or what they wanted, but they seemed desperate to talk to me. The ladies were well dressed, the younger in her forties and the other perhaps fifteen to twenty years older.After accepting my invitation to take a seat, the older lady, Lela, began talking and talking. Her story was bizarre, unbelievable , like something out of a fiction book. It went something like this: This is my niece, Doris. She was married to Hugh (last name excluded) on October 24, 1958. She was seventeen years of age, had no money and little education, and has spent the past twenty -three years as a dutiful housewife and mother of three children . Although Hugh is uneducated, he developed into a savvy entrepreneur. He owns a bank and several farms—he is worth millions. But he is an abusive and unfaithful husband. He would force Doris to sign papers without reading them, flaunt his extramarital affairs, and physically assault and mentally abuse Doris , all without explaining his frequent absences from home. In a volatile outburst a few days ago, Hugh said something that made 162 Strong Advocate Doris ask me to go with her to their lockbox at the bank. What we found was shocking. The papers in the lockbox indicated that Hugh and Doris were divorced three years ago, on September 8, 1978, in Barry County, Missouri, where neither of them had ever lived. Hugh obviously did not want anyone to know of the divorce, which must be why he obtained it in a distant county where no one would take note of the proceeding. He never told Doris, and they continued to live as they had before, with Doris cooking his meals, doing his laundry, sharing his bed, and caring for their children. The divorce decree in the lockbox said Doris was to receive one thousand dollars per month, nothing more.Actually, Hugh had given Doris one thousand dollars per month, before and after the purported divorce, to pay for groceries, clothing for the family, and other household expenses, so the thousand dollars was for the family, not Doris. What could we do about all this? Doris didn’t mind being divorced from the scumbag, but she wanted her fair share of their assets. During the discussion, Doris sat as if in a stupor. She said nothing, nor did she react to anything that was said. If the aunt was telling the truth, why did Doris not at least affirm the accuracy of her story? Why was she not outraged? Was she a pawn in some far-out scheme the aunt had conceived? Was she on drugs? How could she sign divorce papers and not know it? How could she live with a man for three years without knowing that she was not married to him? It all was too preposterous to be true. After the ladies left, we decided it would be easy to discredit Lela’s story by checking the abstract offices in the counties where Hugh supposedly owned farms. What we found there led to a further investigation. Hugh owned 30 acres where the family residence was located; 1,382 acres with a brick house and farm buildings in Cedar County; 520 acres with a house and barns in Christian County; 280 acres with two houses, sheds, and barns in Webster County; the Mike Johnson Chevrolet Love, Marriage, and Fraud 163 building in Wright County; and almost 90 percent of the stock in the Southern Missouri Bank, a small bank in Mansfield. The aunt’s account of Hugh’s assets was even understated. And if Hugh owned these assets, what else did he own that the aunt did not know about? We needed to look further. Since Lela was telling the truth about Hugh’s wealth, perhaps she also was on target concerning the clandestine divorce. A search of the Barry County records disclosed that a divorce indeed had been granted as alleged. Doris had signed papers, which entered her appearance, agreed to the divorce and property settlement, and permitted...