Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Pre-Nups, Fraud, and Huffington Post Reporting


I just read an interesting article posted on Huffington Post.  The article's headline was, Why This Millionaire's Wife Is Especially Happy.  This certainly piqued my interest.  Upon selecting the title, I then read the interior headline, "Elizabeth Petrakis, Millionaire's Wife, Gets Prenup Thrown Out."  

All right!  Now I am really interested.  

Then I read the first line, "
In a rare move, a Brooklyn appellate court has decided that a prenuptial agreement between a Long Island woman and her millionaire husband will be thrown out, the New York Post first reported." Well, golly.  What happened? 

The article goes on to state that the ex-Mrs. Petrakis was given a pre-nup three months prior to their wedding.  The document stated that Mr. Petrakis' assests would remain his over the course of the marriage and in the event of divorce, but for every year they were married his wife would receive $25,000.  She refused to sign it.  

Four days prior to the wedding, Mr. Petrakis promised to destroy the pre-nup if they had children.  She accepted this and signed the document.  The article does not state whether or not they had children, but assuming they did have kids, he did not throw it out and later had his attorney enforce the document.   

The issue with the article is how it misleads readers.  It is not a "rare move" for a judge to throw out a document when fraud has occurred.  He lied to her to get her to sign the document.  That is fraudulent.  Not only that, but it was four days before the wedding.  Did she have time to really examine the document to comprehend what she was signing?  And what was the rush?  He wanted her to sign it so badly, he lied to her days before their nuptials.  

It smells bad and when it smells bad, there means there is a problem.  This was not a "rare move" by the Brooklyn judge.  It was the right move.  To visit the article, click the link below: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/elizabeth-petrakis-prenup_n_2853146.html