Billion Dollar Divorce
It’s not all that often that Federal prosecutors ask to intervene in your divorce. But then not every divorce involves billions of dollars owed to the government.
According to today’s Washington Post, Walter Forbes, 65, former Chairman of the Cendant Corp. was sentenced in 2007 to serve 12.5 years in prison for accounting fraud in the 1990’s. In 1999, Forbes sold the family’s nearly $6 million, 11,000-square-foot New Canaan mansion in New Canaan, Connecticut, to his wife, Caren Forbes for $10. Although Forbes owes the government and Cendant over $3 billion in court-ordered restitution, his wife owes nothing and so they couldn’t collect from her.
But when Caren Forbes filed for divorce in Bridgeport Superior Court in January of this year on the grounds that the marriage was irretrievably broken, the government asked the divorce judge to order her to transfer assets back to Walter Forbes.
Last week, Judge Howard Owens ordered Caren Forbes to transfer ownership of homes in Connecticut and Rhode Island, and half of the couple’s jewelry and art collections back to Walter Forbes so the government and Cedant can attach them and recover the money.
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