New York Family Law Blog

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s marriage to Corina Villaraigosa has come to an official end, a court spokesman told a New York Family Lawyer.

Villaraigosa’s wife, Corina Villaraigosa, filed for divorce in June of 2007, stating there were “irreconcilable differences” between them. She initiated the dissolution of their 20-year marriage after Villaraigosa publicly claimed he was responsible for their separation, citing a “personal sense of failure”, sources told a New York Family Lawyer.

There had been many rumors about the status of the marriage, in the months preceding the divorce announcement. Once the divorce was announced, New York Family Lawyers discovered the mayor had been dating a former Telemundo anchor. They had been in the relationship, at that time, for at least 18 months. He acknowledged the relationship and stated, “I take full responsibility for my actions.”

It was once a statistical fact that living together before marriage was more likely to result in divorce. Still, it is more common than ever for couples to live together without being married. Have matters changed?

The times have certainly changed. In the late 70s, about one-third of people lived together before getting married. Most of these were people who lived less traditional lives, which made them more prone to divorce, a sociologist said to a New York Family Lawyer. The stigma against what was once called “living in sin” has faded, though some socially religious groups still frown upon it. Now, two-thirds of American marriages start as cohabitation.

Motivations may have also changed. Free love was a motivation in the 70s. Today, it may be financial reasons that prompt a couple to live together. “What really stood out was the change in unemployment characteristics,” a family demographer for the U.S. Census told a New York Family Lawyer. In 2008, 59 percent of cohabitating couples said both partners were employed. It was only 49 percent just two years later.

Census data has revealed some interesting facts, according to New York Family Lawyers. Couples with sons are less likely to split up, unmarried pregnant couples are more likely to quickly get married if the child is going to be a boy and divorced mothers of boys are more likely marry again and stay remarried.

This does not mean, of course, that daughters wreck marriage, New York Family Lawyers are quick to say. Research from 2003 shows that couples with a first-born girl were about 5 percent more likely to divorce than when the parents had a son born first. Three daughters can double that to 10 percent.

The research comes from more than 3 million adults in U.S. Census data, which means the data is probably not just some statistical anomaly. That leaves the question of why this trend is so. Some believe it may be that many don’t want to raise boys in a fatherless home. Or it may be that mothers are far more willing to leave a bad marriage because the presence of a daughter empowers the mother.

It’s true that there’s no estate tax in 2010, so anyone who stands to inherit in that year will not lose any money to that, no matter how much the sum might be. Unfortunately, it might be offset by a change in capital gains tax when it comes to selling those inherited things, says a New York Family Lawyer.

Before 2010, an heir could sell inherited property what is known as a stepped-up basis, according to New York Family Lawyers. This means that capital gains would be assessed based upon the value of the asset when the owner died, not what the original owner bought it for. So, if someone bought a classic car when it was new for $5,000, but that car is now worth $75,000, the value of the car would be stepped up to $75,000. So, if the heirs sold the car for $75,000, in 2009, there would be no capital gains tax.

Lawmakers decided that would be too much money lost, so in place of the repealed estate tax, heirs had to pay capital gains on a carry-over basis. This means that same car would have $70,000 dollars eligible to capital gains tax, says a New York Family Lawyer. This could be a problem for people who inherit small businesses, who may have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to sell that business, even when it falls below the 2009 threshold where estate taxes normally would have been paid.

A one year old child was left trapped inside a car while his mother went inside to smoke marijuana, reports a New York Family Law Lawyer. The mother was arrested and charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, resisting arrest, and endangering the welfare of a child. The child’s father was contacted and since the incident the boy has been released to his father’s custody and care.

It was a Good Samaritan passing by that first noticed the child alone and unattended in the car. The child had been left there for at least 40 minutes, notes a New York Family Law Lawyer. The police rushed to the scene, saw the child, and immediately proceeded to the home. There, they confronted the mother and asked her what happened. Her reply was that she had only left the boy in the car for five minutes. From there, the police noticed the strong, specific smell of marijuana. They then found a small pipe as they searched the premise, said a New York Family Law Lawyer. The woman’s defense was that she was using the pipe because he was not feeling well. She did not offer an excuse nor explanation for why she had to leave her son in the car while she smoked marijuana.

From there, the police did what they had to do and placed the woman under arrest. She became violent and lashed out at the well meaning police officers. She attempted to forcefully kick, forcefully punch, and forcefully strike at anyone within distance, reports a New York Family Law Lawyer. Thankfully, no one injured. There were no reports of the child being harmed.

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Sometimes, it’s just not meant to be. But sometimes, maybe it is meant to be. Consider the high-profile couple that had a highly publicized divorce, had a year-long battle in court – then reconciled before the divorce was finalized!

A former supermodel and her billionaire husband spent 18 months in a bitter separation struggle, New York Family Lawyers have learned. Newspapers printed stories about adultery, drug use, even theft. More than 100,000 court documents were filed and millions were spent in legal fees. After all that, the couple decided they wanted to try and hold their marriage together.

Unfortunately, happy endings like that are rare, when it comes to divorce. “Sometimes people aren’t meant to be together and there is no alternative,” a relationship expert told a New York Family Lawyer. Naturally, one doesn’t have to be rich and/or famous to have problems in a marriage.

It was perhaps inevitable. The mayor of White Plains, New York, was already in the middle of dealing with his two arrests for domestic violence when he and his wife both filed for divorce, a New York Family Lawyer has learned.

“All we can say is there are two filings,” one of the mayor’s attorney’s told a New York Family Lawyer, “which means there was a case brought by him against her and her against him.”

The filings were submitted at the same time, about six months after the mayor’s first arrest for allegedly slamming his wife’s fingers in a door.

The ex-wife of Dick Wolf, creator of “Law and Order”, claims she was swindled out of tens of millions of dollars, according to a New York Family Lawyer. An attorney for the business management company contends that the case not only “lacks merit”, but that it “intends to contest [the ex-wife’s] latest filing in Los Angeles Superior Court.”

Wolf’s ex-wife filed a suit of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, according to a New York Family Lawyer. It is her claim that the company sided with her ex-husband in their heated divorce proceedings of 2002. She claims her advisers did not tell her that the company she shared with her husband would continue to earn money for “Law and Order” and its spinoffs. If a decision is made for Wolf’s ex-wife, they could owe her millions.

In addition, she claims the company’s worth was not correctly stated to her and it is worth a lot more than she was told. She informed a New York Family Lawyer that she was told she’d only make about $8 million more from the show. This is not even “remotely close” to what the franchise has generated, she says.

She was there, of course, to see the marriage between Victoria’s Secret supermodel Stephanie Seymour and her billionaire husband break up. After all, she was the other woman.

The platinum-haired ex-lover of the billionaire had a year-and-a-half long affair with him and when it comes to the inevitable child custody battle, she has already thrown her lot in with Stephanie Seymour, rather than the man she had the affair with. “I don’t know how Stephanie lived with this man for so many years,” she told a New York Family Lawyer. “He was so controlling, I would have emotional breakdowns.”

According to her, the billionaire would go on and on about his wife’s problems, from alleged infidelities to drug abuse. “Every time I saw him, he would say something about her,” said the 24-year-old pinup girl. “He didn’t feel like she was fit to be a mother and said he would keep fighting so she wouldn’t look after the kids.” The billionaire and his wife have three children: two boys aged 16 and 14 and a little 5-year-old girl.