Billionaire John Overdeck is ready to testify in his record-breaking divorce case Tuesday — however his estranged spouse was barred from taking the stand after a decide dominated she resorted to soiled ways, like hacking his pc and deleting proof.
New Jersey Household Courtroom Choose Bruce Buechler decided that Laura Overdeck “engaged in a number of discovery abuses,” based on a transcript of a previous listening to, citing a number of examples of home espionage and proof destruction.
These included illicitly accessing her husband’s personal pc to take photographs of emails he exchanged along with his legal professionals, breaking into his put up workplace field and deleting proof from her telephone, the decide stated.
It means Overdeck might be unable to testify or name skilled witnesses in what her lawyer has dubbed the Backyard State’s most costly contested divorce.
That would throw a wrench in her try to assert a 35% stake in hubby John Overdeck’s $80 billion hedge fund Two Sigma, which her attorneys estimate quantities to a whopping $6.2 billion.
The decide present in April that Laura Overdeck had snapped pics on her cell of her partner’s emails discussing authorized technique — after which failed to supply the telephone, based on the transcript.
Regardless of court docket orders, she didn’t flip over the telephone “till no less than 13 months later” — and the photographs had been deleted, with Overdeck claiming the gadget was working out of reminiscence, based on Buechler.
“Whether or not Ms. Overdeck did it maliciously or by accident shouldn’t be related,” Buechler stated. ”There’s a cumulative impact right here.”
The ruling additionally discovered that Overdeck had satisfied the put up workplace to offer her with an additional key to her estranged husband’s personal P.O. field “so she may entry the mail in that field” — however she refused to say what she took or to return it.
Buechler opted to dismiss Overdeck’s divorce criticism — calling it the “final sanction” — severely limiting her choices within the Newark courtroom, the place the hedge fund honcho was anticipated to take the stand.
Grilling him on cross-examination would be the principal approach for her to make her case, because of her “a number of discovery abuses,” based on the ruling.
She’ll be legally barred from presenting a single shred of affirmative proof, testifying in assist of her declare or calling her personal high-priced valuation specialists to the stand.
However Buechler made clear that “the property should be equitably distributed,” that means that the Overdeck fortune will nonetheless want splitting up.
At concern is whether or not Overdeck can declare her husband’s stake in Two Sigma as a marital asset.
However John Overdeck’s legal professionals argue the Manhattan-based funding agency was based two years earlier than the couple’s 2002 nuptials.
On the primary day of testimony final week, Laura Overdeck’s lawyer Theresa Lyons revealed that she beforehand rejected a paltry provide of $633 million to settle the matter, based on Bloomberg.
The financier’s lawyer, Jonathan Wolfe, stated it was really a $723 million tax-free equitable distribution. He additionally denied the $6.2 billion determine, saying {that a} 35% piece of John Overdeck’s firm shares amounted to $4.9 billion.
Laura Overdeck can also be suing the legislation agency answerable for the household’s property planning, claiming that they secretly helped “divorce-proof” her husband’s property whereas they had been allegedly additionally representing her.
Her authorized crew is interesting Buechler’s ruling, and that course of is ongoing. They declined to remark Monday.
