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| Divorce makes mom fugitive, torn from her kids
By Jane Musgrave
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 13, 2006
Merry Morris
is on the lam. All because, she claims, she wanted to spend more time
with her children.
If she returns to Palm Beach County or gets pulled over for speeding
in whatever
city she now calls home, the 52-year-old is likely to be
slapped in cuffs and thrown in jail. She'll stay behind bars until she
comes up with $1.8 million to pay her ex-husband for challenging the
visitation agreement that was part of the suburban Boca Raton couple's
2001
divorce.
NEW
That is the simple explanation
for Morris' plight.
But like many divorces in which lots of money, plenty of ego and years
of acrimony are involved,
there's nothing simple about the case that
began innocuously enough as Leland Morris vs. Merry Morris.
The case now takes up 14 bulging file folders that cover more than a
yard of shelf space in the Palm County Clerk of Courts Office. It
involves money secreted in offshore accounts. It has spawned three
other
lawsuits. It has been appealed all the way to the Florida Supreme
Court.
Federal judges, including two justices of
the U.S. Supreme Court, have
been asked to weigh in as well.
And its journey through the judicial system isn't over. Yet another
appeal is pending in the federal 11th District Court of Appeals in
Atlanta.
The couple's explanations for why their divorce spun so out of control
are typical of those who have spent years brawling in court.
He says: She's a money-grubbing
witch.
She says: He's a spiteful control freak who must win at all costs.
But there's an inescapable irony in the Morris'
tale: At the root of
their legal wrangling is a provision in their post-nuptial agreement, a
provision that was designed to let the two make a clean break and move
on with their lives.
A provision that some say allows the parent with the most money to win
control of their children's lives.
Trouble from the start
One of the few things the two agree on is this: The marriage began
badly.
Merry said she realized her
mistake on their honeymoon. Leland says
his doubts began before he walked down the aisle.
Ignoring their misgivings, they moved to Boca Raton from New York,
where he had made millions in the real estate business. They set up
housekeeping in a 12,000-square-foot home in Long Lake Estates, settled
into
suburban society circles and had two children, a boy and a girl, they
sent to private schools.
A decade later, Leland decided he'd had enough. But he said he worried
that if he divorced Merry, she
would get custody of the children and
run.
A good businessman, he began planning his exit strategy. He started
divesting himself of real estate holdings throughout the country.
Although only 45, he retired, believing that developing a "Mr. Mom"
life would
increase his chances of persuading a judge that he should get shared,
if not primary, custody of his kids.
But the key to his plans was a post-nuptial
agreement. Using his
millions as a bargaining chip, he asked his attorney to craft a special
clause. In addition to paying her $1.5 million, he agreed to give her
an
extra $850,000 cash and $500,000 to buy a house. In return, she agreed
they would share custody of the children on a two-week rotating basis.
Later, as the marriage continued to fall apart, the agreement was
amended, raising the cash bonus to $1 million. For the extra money, she
agreed he would be the primary custodial parent and, instead of
rotating
custody, she would have visitation rights between Thursday and Sunday
nights.
However, in both agreements, there was a catch: If she went to court
to challenge any part of the agreement, she would have to pay the bonus
money back.
He said he asked West Palm Beach attorney Jeffrey Fisher to devise a
way to make sure she wouldn't escape with the children or keep him tied
up in court for
years.
Fisher, one of the nation's leading divorce lawyers, said he never had
written such a provision.
"We were in uncharted waters," he said. "My client had a problem and
this was my way of coming up with a creative solution."
The 2001 divorce was surprisingly trouble-free. Leland filed papers
Aug. 27. Three days later, a final judgment ending the 14-year union
was
approved.
That was the last time anything went smoothly between them.
She claimed he didn't live up to the terms of the agreement. He
claimed she wouldn't show up to take the children when she said she
would. He
claimed she was a drunk. She claimed he was turning the children
against her. On at least one occasion, police were called when they
were
supposed to transfer the children to each other.
On June 6, 2003, she wrote a three-page letter to Circuit Court Judge
Jeffrey Colbath, complaining that her ex-husband was not honoring
the
visitation agreement and asked it be modified to give her more
concentrated time with her children and to accommodate her new life.
"It has taken me almost two years to develop the strength and
confidence to write a letter like this, and to know 110 percent that if
I do
not take steps now to improve this visitation schedule, the emotional
development of my children and
our relationship will have permanent
repercussions," she wrote.
The letter was the match that lighted the inferno.
Merry's claims
rebuked
In the months that followed, she went to court to get an injunction
against her ex-husband, charging him with domestic violence. It was
denied. She called the Florida Department of Children and Families,
insisting he was abusing the children. Investigators found no evidence
to
substantiate her claims.
In fact, rather than hurt him, her allegations came back to haunt her.
When Colbath
finally ruled on her request to modify the visitation
agreement, he chastised her, saying her unsubstantiated charges were
symptomatic of her "aggressive and antagonistic conduct directed
towards her
ex-husband."
The judge's stern rebuke proved to be the least of her worries.
Colbath ruled that her letter constituted a challenge of the
agreement. That meant she had to repay the $1.5
million bonus she had
received.
Colbath also ordered her to pay her ex-husband's legal bills to defend
himself against what he called
"vexatious" litigation. That added
roughly $300,000 to her bill.
Colbath left no doubt about how he viewed Merry's claims.
Rather than a desire to spend more time with her children, he said she
was motivated by greed. Shortly after she wrote Colbath the letter, her
attorneys filed a legal brief asking him whether a request to change
the visitation schedule would constitute a challenge and
therefore put
her $1.5 million bonus at risk.
Colbath said the failed legal maneuver betrayed her true motive.
"She filed an action for declaratory relief trying to find out how far
she should go - how far she could go in the prosecution of her
misguided efforts to address the visitation schedule, which again
emphasizes
that for her it was more about the money and her needs and wants rather
than the children's," he said.
What he didn't know is that Merry had moved the money offshore and
things were about to spin out of
control.
Offshore trust defended
Contrary to the claims of Leland, his attorney and more than a dozen
judges, Merry insists she didn't move the money offshore to keep it out
of her husband's reach.
She describes the trust she created in the Cook Islands as a kind of
benevolent uncle who pays her bills and sends her money when she needs
it. "I'm not real good with money and I'm not
real smart with
investments," she said.
Once the irrevocable trust was created, she claims, she had no control
over the cash. She can't force the trustee to pay the $1.8 million
claim because it doesn't recognize foreign judgments, she says.
A letter from SouthPac Trust Ltd. to Merry's attorney says as much:
"While we appreciate your client is within and bound by the orders of
the
above court,
the trust is not."
Colbath didn't buy it.
He was the first of many judges to take such a view. He held her in
contempt of court for
failing to repay the money and issued a warrant
for
her arrest.
Then Leland, unable to get his hands on the money in her offshore
account, filed a lawsuit seeking to foreclose on the $500,000 home he
bought her in St. Andrews Country Club in suburban Boca Raton.
When she failed to appear in court to answer Leland's claims, Circuit
Judge Jonathan Gerber followed Colbath's
lead. And then he took it a
step further.
After she failed to appear in court as ordered three times, he held
her in criminal contempt and issued three warrants for her arrest,
setting a $100,000 bond on each one.
And to make sure Gerber's orders would be enforced, Fisher said he
took them to the sheriff's office and entered them on the national
database so she would be held if police anywhere in the
country stop
her and
extradited back to Palm Beach County.
Merry hired attorneys to file appeals.
However, the 4th District Court of
Appeal refused even to consider her
appeal of Colbath's order to repay the $1.8 million because she is a
fugitive from the law. The Florida Supreme Court agreed. But the
decision
wasn't unanimous.
In a dissent signed by two other judges, Justice Harry Anstead wrote
that the decision to deny Merry's appeal "potentially fosters a serious
miscarriage of justice, and
violates the petitioner's constitutional
right to an appeal."
The challenge clause in the Morris' post-nuptial agreement raises
important public policy decisions, he said. "Florida public policy and
law
is unequivocal in its declaration that adult parents cannot barter away
the best interest of their children or exclude the courts from
reviewing terms or conditions of custody, visitation, or support," he
wrote.
Refusing to hear Merry's appeal constitutes a classic Catch-22, he
wrote. She is refusing to repay the money because she claims the
challenge
clause is illegal but she can't get a court to review the clause
because she won't pay the money.
Defying court may have been risky
Fisher maintains that Merry has an easy way to resolve the matter -
one others have used when caught in similar net. She can merely post a
bond using the money in Cook Island as collateral and then her appeal
can
proceed.
"She's always had the key to her jail cell," he said.
However, he acknowledged that Merry has dug herself in deep by
ignoring the orders of so many judges.
Although Colbath may let her walk if she posts a bond or pays the $1.8
million back, Gerber may not be as lenient.
"She thumbed her nose at the court," Fisher said. "Court systems can't
work with people who don't comply with the rules."
Leland,
he said, just wants back the money he is owed.
"He always thought she would come to him with a rational proposal,"
Fisher said. "Now, it is
literally out of his hands."
Leland, who is now remarried and living in Highland Beach, says
Merry's refusal to follow the rules shows what the fight is all about:
money.
"It was never about access to the children. She could have posted a
bond at any time and seen her kids," he said.
The children, who were youngsters when the fight began, are now 14 and
16.
Merry, who contacted The Palm Beach Post, claims she now lives in
California, and she questions why her husband doesn't have her
arrested.
Then she answers her own question. She says he has her just where he
wants her: unable to defend herself and unable to see her children for
fear
of arrest.
"Money has never been my issue," she said. "The only thing challenged
is the strength of my maternal instinct."
|
| By
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|
|
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