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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJail Becomes Home for Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony
By Sophia Pearson - Aug 26, 2013
Ari Schochet has grown so accustomed to being sent to jail for missing alimony payments that he goes into a routine.
Before his family-court hearing, Schochet, 41, sticks on a nicotine patch to cope with jailhouse smoking bans, sends an Ari Off the Grid e-mail to friends and family, and scrawls key phone numbers in permanent ink on his forearm.
The former Citadel Investment Group Inc. portfolio manager, who once earned $1 million a year, has been jailed for missing court-ordered payments at least eight times in the past two years as he coped with the end of his 17-year marriage.
The reason he ran afoul of the law was simple. He was out of work for most of that time, a victim of a weak economy, and he ran through his savings trying to pay his wife alimony and child support that totaled almost $100,000 a year.
Its a circle of hell theres just no way out of, Schochet said. I paid it as long as I could.
Schochet and ex-spouses in similar changed circumstances say New Jerseys law unfairly imposes lifetime alimony on them. If they fail to make payments, like the $78,000 a year Schochet owes his ex-wife in alimony, they can be jailed for contempt of court regardless of whether they have a job or resources.
more...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-26/jail-becomes-home-for-husband-stuck-with-lifetime-alimony.html
Scuba
(53,475 posts)Modifications are done all the time due to income drops.
NightWatcher
(39,343 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)$78,000 for doing what, exactly?
This couple clearly were living out some kind of lifestyle that very few of us could ever reach.
I have no pity.
treestar
(82,383 posts)The court found differently. I wonder what he left out here.