Mel Gibson considering legal fight to gain more custody of daughter from ex

Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-03-24 01:22

Story here. Excerpt:

'Mel Gibson is reported to be considering another legal battle with his ex Oksana Grigorieva.

The 58-year-old is alleged to be seeking more custody of his four-year-old daughter Lucia that he shares with the Russian pianist, who he pays $20,000 a month in child support to.
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An insider told the website: 'Oksana is terrified that Mel is going to go to court and ask Judge Scott Gordon to give him sole custody of their daughter, Lucia, because of a recent incident.
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A report by TMZ claims that Grigorieva recently filed legal documents claiming she can only afford to pay $372 per month towards debts listed at $438,000.

The hard-up Russian pianist is in dire financial straits, with her position made much worse a fortnight ago when a judge ruled the Lethal Weapon star did not have to pay the $375,000 remaining on their settlement after she breached a confidentiality clause.

According to TMZ she is asking the court to clear the balance of her debts after five years, despite the fact she will have only stumped up $22,320, just five per cent of what she owes.

This amounts to just over one installment of the $20,000 she receives in child support from the Braveheart star to care for their four-year-old daughter Lucia.

Oksana filed for bankruptcy less than four years after knocking back a reported $15m child custody settlement offer from the megarich actor, who is worth an estimated $425m.

Previous legal documents filed showed she is claiming she is so broke she has just $10 in cash to her name, and has $48,000 in assets and $438,000 in debts.
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During her bitter custody battle with the Mad Max actor she sacked more than 40 lawyers.
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Oksana is still receiving $20,000 a month in child support for Lucia, while her former flame Timothy Dalton pays her $2,500 a month for their son Alexander.'

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Comments

$22,500/mo., assuming she doesn't work herself at all, comes to $270,000/yr. She can't pay up on her legal bills of $250,000, even in installments? Let's say for the sake of argument that her many attorneys at first refuse to accept a payment plan; then, they will have to accept nothing, since she will declare bankruptcy but still be taking in $270,000/yr., which they will try to go after. (I am not sure, since it is CS, that they can actually get any of it.) So let's say that instead of nothing, they accept a payment plan and between them accept she will pay in total $30k/yr. until the debts are paid, in 8-9 years. (If $30k is too low, they can try for $40k or $50k, whatever.)

CS is not tax-deductible by the payer and is not counted as income of the payee. Talk about your sweet deals! So she gets all $270,000, but may have to pay state taxes on the CS; I don't know about that. Also, I do not know about whether she has to pay any taxes to the Russian gov't on income from non-Russian sources, particularly this kind of income. So I'll leave that out for now.

She has 2 kids and herself and let's just say she has zero income from piano-playing. Deduct the $30k to her lawyers per year, and still she cannot make ends meet on $240,000/yr.? Really?

I know life in CA, especially in the LA/San Diego/etc. area is quite pricey; ordinary homes go for millions of dollars, etc. But no law says you need to live there. Perhaps she could move a bit away from the area -- this might make child hand-overs a bit more challenging for both her and her ex, but Mr. Gibson has the money needed to make it work. Agreed, he should not have to pay extra like this just so his ex can live someplace less expensive, but as they say... no guarantees in life.

But I am being a bit optimistic here. I am assuming she is not spending the money on things not related to taking care of the kids, or that she is for whatever reason unpublicized and through no fault of hers, in financial straits. That's between her, the judge, and her ex. If however she is spending her ex's $$ on stuff she should not be spending it on, or stuff she need not be spending quite so much of it on -- that's a different matter.

Final conclusion: Prenuptial agreements are especially necessary in all cases where one or both people stand to lose a lot of $$ if things do not work out. But even if not, may I suggest that in most cases, it really is a good idea before those "two little words" get you contractually bound to another person in ways you never thought possible.

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-03-24 01:25