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Hi Everyone:
I) In addition to my real estate biz’s/careers, I was co-starter of an internet/computer biz based in Calif in the late 1990s….w/my husband of 20-some years, and another married couple: our friends. (l led the way into internet and provided the start-up money (via credit card: no one else had spare credit or $ but me). it became success, a few investors/venture capitalists became involved in the weeks/months following its start……husband and I later amicably divorced; split all 50/50 community property…..including that biz…..I ran/grew my own real estate/investing biz’s……husband and my former girlfriend (who was the second married couple starting it) kept working at only that…they each earned great 6-figure annual salaries from it, at one point it had 60 employees: engineers etc…….later 2008ish, they merged it w/another firm located out in mid-west, that firm’s CEO fired both of them, one after the other, then in 2010 they told me he ran it into the ground, that it was dead/had no value…….But, two years later, 2012, while I was in basically Intensive Care from an accident I had had, I saw an email from former husband that ‘surprise, it survived, after all, has been sold, am sending you your share of profits’. He sent
lowish to mid-6-figure amt…….no paperwork to prove he’d sent correct amount. My CPA insisted on paperwork proving amt was correct…Husband said, ‘it was a private company, and that type of company does not have paperwork sent out to its owners when it sells. .A CAlif corporate attorney told me that there is ALWAYS paperwork sent out at sale of company to the shareholder owners proving the amt sent is correct, whether private company or public…that it was all millarky. Husband kept insisting no paperwork had been provided..I had to hire an attorney……our divorce was recorded in a remote small town (great vacation spot) out in the boonies…few attorneys there. Have one who handles divorces plus business litigation, etc, is on city council and has been for many terms, used to be mayor, his wife is a real estate agent, etc.
In the 2012 email my former husband had sent me announcing the sale, he’d also written that an extra $50,000 to 100,000 would be forthcoming to me a year later (plus an equal amt to him); ie that that amt was being held back as ‘escrow money’ to ensure the former owners did certain things during the year following biz sale to new owners…..and that he would send it to me after that year ended….ie if the money was released to him/us.
He never sent any escrow money to me…..claims he never rec’d any escrow money at all. That the new biz owners never paid it out…..in fact he said, when I kept pressing him for proof etc; that they ‘were thinking of suing all former owners/shareholders for that plus a much larger amt for not having performed as promised/expected!’. But, after 20+ yrs/marriage, you know a person so well…and I, knowing him inside and out, (he never ever repays loans/debts if he can avoid it; even to his own parents: partly why a divorce occurred) and I can pretty much guarantee he did receive my (+ his) escrow money, but is keeping it all for himself. (his new wife is an aggressive attorney;was with big Los Angeles law firm for long time before marrying my former husband: she’s been retired for past 14 yrs, but still is pure lawyer type: pretty smart…..they both are very slippery/aggressive/sneaky)….and it turns out, I discovered this year after I recuperated from the accident; that they owe me much more than they sent me……they sent me only 20% of our community property share, vs the 50% I am supposed to receive per the divorce agreement.My attorney asked for his/her tax returns for 2012 and 2013 to verify that they had not deposited any escrow money. It does not show up there. My attorney says, ‘if we can’t prove it to the judge, we can’t do anything about it, we will just have to forget about that, too’.
1. But, I KNOW he has rec’d it……during our marriage, he’d lie lie lie re: money….I had to have every single thing in writing……and as I grew into adulthood/was wiser/etc, we divorced (amicably, but cautiously on my part)…………any ideas where he put it, or how he hid it /is hiding it from us/from my attorney…..? What sneaky tricks can/do people pull in these situations……..?
My guess so far is:
*he endorsed the check(s) over to his brother (for a fee to cash it or hold it for him/them), to his wife’s sister (same), that he is having his old buddy at our former company (who he hired as salesman years ago; but quickly became one of top executives, to hold off on sending him the escrow checks, until after our case is reviewed by judge/is over.
2. My CAlif attorney is telling me that it is ‘extremely difficult, hard, expensive, ie essentially impossible’ to subpoena a company located outside Calif….ie when I asked if couldn’t we just subpoena the company who bought our internet/computer biz to see all the paperwork sent to my husband, and the dollar amounts sent to him in order to determine just what i SHOULD have rec’d vs what husband sent……
I offered to move to that state for a year or two etc; to establish residency, to make it easier to subpoena…he said, that won’t really work/help and didn’t give any further explanation.
I must confess I find it almost ludicrous to think that it is ‘impossible’ to subpoena a company if it isn’t located in Calif where my attorney is…..if that is the case; it seems that the entire world/entire usa, would just grind to a halt……what good is anything, if mere state lines prevent a person from obtaining simple documents pertaining to their own business matters? But , perhaps I am wrong/uninformed/naive….? (yeeks; how horrible if that is true: can’t subpoena papers if out of state…)
*Can anyone think of a way around all of this?
*Any ideas on how to get those sales documents that were sent to my husband…..and to see the amt sent to him?II). Another biz we started (and I co-financed by selling some prime real estate, using my great credit, etc), was a gift-merchandise type store(s) and online sales of same……I also owned 50% of the sales of that, ie as community property. He has never sent me any funds from those sales, and again, I can guarantee he is hiding his/our revenues. (my accident was quite serious; was in basically Int Care for over 5 yrs….”so many bad little rats performing antics when one is indisposed”). MY attorney says it would be very expensive to pour through his checkbooks, etc, ie to see what he has been earning/has not sent to me……that I should just forget that. But I worry; since there is intellectual property involved: some of the designs we sold/sell on merchandise; seem to be becoming popular on world-wide basis…..I worry that if I just let it go, I will regret it later……(my girlfriend was niece of the author of a very very famous children’s story book: won’t say its name to protect their privacy…but bottom line, her income comes from royalties of the book/film rights/licensing etc. I see evidence that our designs/merchandise/etc are heading in that direction; Ie a viable brand…..with loyal following/fans etc…sales growing as they market it.
Before he learned that I’d hired an attorney to pursue these matters, I saw he had a large website where the sales of all merchandise occurred…..I made a copy, (but it has been lost due to cyber stalkers), after he learned of my attorney/our suit, he w/drew the website, it said ‘temporarily down for remodeling, back up soon’……it now is much harder to find, and only sells posters and books, no merchandise….A tech-PI who I talked to for a few minutes (have not hired him yet; he says there ‘is no guarantee plus a $500 minimum charge ie 2 hrs/my time if you want me to further investigate) told me there is another website w/his name on it that seems to be hidden by “Perfect Privacy LLC”. I think husband has w/drawn the merchandise site to try to prevent me from pursuing that, too…but am positive that he will put it back up after the judge reviews our situation…and that he/wife will keep making it grow, that there may be film rights and licensing deals at some pt from some of the designs we acquired pre-divorce…ie film producers et al like to buy our products, so that likely will happen….Any ideas on how to prove how much he’s been earning/taking from that biz….?
Any street-smarts on how to deal with that challenge….?
What info does anyone have about subpoening companies not located in your own state?III) Another design biz we had co-started in the early 1990s (while still married) with another couple, sold gifts/design items, was also part of our divorce (we sold our 2 married couples’ co-owned store before he/I divorced)…..I was to receive 50% of any sales of the designs/products he/I had obtained-developed pre-divorce. Our friends, the other married couple, still have their own gift store. The wife and I always got along well, but she and my husband likely were even closer; since he helped her with their biz at times……(I was busy raising our babies)…..We amicably divorced late 1990s, I dropped into her store to say hi in the early 2000s….and noticed how ‘unlike’ herself she behaved with me….sort of nervous, a little embarassed, maybe slight shame (she is Catholic; I was raised in that church too, so she/I had that in common), was very on edge, shying away from me……(in her small store)…….versus her usual open, friendly, smiley, normal warm self (she/I had spent hours together during the 1990s selling the designs/products/flying to gift shows, out to dinners after, etc…she had always been so warm, friendly and protective of me, so this new side of her was very very unusual; startlingly so). i could not understand ‘why’ she had behaved like that; ie on both/all three occasions that I dropped in to see her during early 2000s…….Until my attorney and I began investigating all this, ie after I’d recuperated from my accident. Now, I am almost positive that she had behaved so oddly/so unlike her usual self; because no doubt my former husband had, post our amicable separation & divorce, asked her to not tell me she was selling many of our design/items on private basis, from her store. Some of the items are quite costly; into 5 figures, and private sales are not unusual for persons who know what designers/products/etc that they want; and she is well known in the gift/design world; pple from all over will call and ask her to find gift items for them by x, y, z designer, to arrange for them to privately buy it from its current owner or from whatever store/source she is able to find it is in…….there are many private sales of such items all over.
* AGain, my attorney is saying I just have to forget this; that it would be too expensive to pour thru their checkbooks etc…..that you MUST have PROOF……….so to just forget it.
* does anyone have any ideas re: what to do?
*re: what they may be doing/pulling off?
*re; the street smarts solution pple usually use in situations like this? ie to get what is owed them…?I went thru things like this all the time with my former husband; is that par for the course? …..Some men, hearing the story, have told me he was/is a ‘hedonist’….spent huge amts on his own pleasures, hid from me what he was doing…..and now is trying to avoid paying me the 50% that I own, of all these community property items.
A judge will review everything in 5 weeks or so……I would so appreciate the inputs of anyone who has had experience with any or all of this…….I tend to keep a sense of humor about everything, pretty much all the time, but am looking at this as quite a learning experience….and do so hope that pple out there can suggest ideas/street smart ideas-solutions to any or all of it.
Thank-you,
Donna.
Donna, I want to address just a few aspects of your very complicated challenges.1. Getting copies of older checks can become very difficult. “Some” (not necessarily all) banks have stopped making copies of checks older than just a few years (maybe 3?, not sure exactly) available even to their current customers. I have a friend being accused by her HOA of not paying dues from many years back. She is sure she paid those, but after a few years she thought there was no longer any reason to keep her oldest cancelled checks. Now her own bank says they can no longer retrieve copies of those older checks for her. So any tech/PI you might hire may or may not run into this same problem.
2. There is a chance (not a guarantee) that the seemingly vanished website you mentioned might have been snapshot-captured by the internet’s “wayback machine” — that is, Archive.org ….. The easiest way to find out is to plug the complete home page URL of that vanished website into the URL data entry block of Archive.org and see if they ever made a copy (or maybe even many copies on different dates) of that now-missing website. If so, you can either save the complete URL from Archive.org for each date they saved a copy of that website, or preserve a complete copy of such saved web pages by using a webpage-to-PDF extension for whatever browser and extension combination that works for you. Better yet, save BOTH the complete archive.org URL for each saved webpage you select AND copies of those saved pages in PDF format as well. The chances are probably pretty good that the webmaster of that now-vanished website did not add the little piece of code that would have blocked archive.org from scanning the website. To save you some digging for browser and PDF extensions that cooperate and perform well together, I’ll share my favorite method. I just use the freely downloadable Russian browser Yandex, which already has a webpage-to-PDF save extension already built in. But if you prefer to stick with whatever browser you’re already familiar with, you can go on a mad hunt for a webpage-to-PDF extension that might work with your existing browser.
It sounds as though you need to do a lot more comparison shopping in the tech/PI community to learn what’s realistically possible, at what cost, and in what time frame. Whether you can get an extension of time on that ticking 5-week fuse for the judge’s review, I can’t know. This sounds like a perfect case for the late night “Parco PI” TV show on the network devoted to law enforcement stories, but they only feature stories for which they’ve already secured a favorable outcome.
Good luck,
–Dee
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Donna
sounds like the best thing you can do it let your attorney take care of this great big mess. I would imagine they will send a subpeona to the new biz owners for them to testify about what actually happened. There had to be a sales contract.
One thing for sure, it’s not worth your health to hang on to the past or fret over money that may or may not exist. At some point, it’s just time to let go and move on… all you are doing is making the lawyers richer.
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