The man who lied on his Income and Expense Declarations paid dearly for his actions

Nov 01, 2016

OUTCOME: Big loss for the liar.

I represented the spouse of an man who was active duty US Navy at the time the divorce was filed. She was actually the high earner. They had three children who lived with their mother; dad only exercis ... ed about 5% of his timeshare. After negotiation, the parties reached a complete agreement, giving my client ongoing child support, reserving on spousal support for both parties, reserving on spousal support, awarding Wife a share of Husband's military retirement and giving Husband half of Wife's substantial 401k. The QDROs were never processed by him, but we got our military retirement division order filed and processed immediately after judgment. Shortly thereafter, Husband was given a medical discharge from the Navy. A few months later, Wife started receiving her share of his military retirement, When she voluntarily wouldn't agree to give it back to him and zero out child support as he demanded and give up ch he filed for modification of child support, and requested she pay him spousal support, but neglected to advise the court that he was receiving unemployment benefits and only reported $900 of his $1900 a month VA disability. He refused to provide us with the back up documentation, and we were forced to do formal discovery. After litigating the issue for months provided altered bank statements where he "whited out" the number 1 in front of the 900 deposited into his bank account from the VA each month. About this time his attorney dropped him like a hot potato and withdrew from his case. He refused to pay child support at all during the litigation, and he didn't want to report his true income because he didn't want to pay any child support ever again. Over the course of the litigation, Husband filed four Income and Expense declarations that were false and/or misleading, and the judge ruled that this was done. By the time the case made it to an evidentiary hearing on his requests for modifcation, and our multiple requests for contempt and sanctions, Husband had lied multiple times to the judge in open court and on his pleadings. He also did not comply with the Court's direct orders regarding production of documents. We received an award of $20,000 in sanctions, $18,000 in attorneys fees and the court changed the final judgment and gave Wife all of her 401k (his half was about $30,000) to repay part of the back child support arrears, calculated retroactively with his correct income. He also did not get spousal support. When you sign an FL-150, an Income and Expense declaration, you do so under penalty of perjury. While perjury is a crime, and we filed a formal complaint with back up documents with law enforcement, they did not investigate the case nor file charges against Husband. They never even responded to our complaint. In this case, the court's civil remedies were all that we could get to punish the Husband for his fraudulent behavior. This case should not be used as an example in the event that the mistake or omission is an accident or not intentional. An amended FL-150 can repair that. In the case at hand, Husband never filed a true and accurate FL-150.T This was also assigned to Judge Enrique Camarena, who can be counted on to hold parties accountable if they do not comply with the law or his orders. Some of the other judges in San Diego are more lenient and less punitive about these things. However, in any of my cases, if the other side is purposely and intentionally not telling the entire truth about their finances on their pleadings, beware. I will pursue motions to compel, contempt and request sanctions and attorneys fees to the fullest until the truth comes before the court.