Sam Wyly must pay ex-wife $500,000 a year despite bankruptcy
A man in bankruptcy can run from his creditors, but he can’t hide from obligations to his ex-wife, as former billionaire Samuel Wyly learned this week.
Wyly, who helped build companies including arts-and-crafts retailer Michaels Stores Inc., filed for Chapter 11 protection in October to fend off an impending judgment in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A Manhattan jury found that Wyly and his deceased brother, Charles, used offshore trust accounts to trade secretly in the stock of four companies on whose boards they sat.
Samuel Wyly’s former wife, Torrie Steele, sued in bankruptcy court in Dallas, claiming that his responsibility to pay her $500,000 a year is a support obligation that’s not wiped out by Chapter 11. On the same evidence, Wyly argued that the payments were a division of marital property, an ordinary unsecured claim.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara J. Houser in Dallas sided with Steele on Thursday. The judge prefaced her 27-page opinion by saying courts view support obligations “more broadly” so that bankruptcy “does not become a tool to allow debtors to escape familial obligations.”
Read more: http://www.dallasnews.com/business/business-headlines/20150220-sam-wyly-must-pay-ex-wife-500000-a-year-despite-bankruptcy.ece
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U.S. judge orders Sam Wyly and Charles Wyly's estate to surrender more than $187M in fraud case
http://www.democraticunderground.com/107820993
