Congressman Grayson and Wife agree to annulment

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BY MIKE SCHNEIDER

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson and his wife have agreed to annul their 24-year marriage as they continued talks on a settlement, ending an acrimonious divorce process that had included allegations of bigamy, financial abandonment and battery.

The agreement was announced Tuesday by a judge in a Florida courtroom at the start of a hearing that had been scheduled to determine whether their marriage should be voided because Lolita Grayson was married to another man when they wed. That bigamy hearing was put on hold with the annulment announcement.

Lolita Grayson's attorney refused to comment after the hearing. She had claimed in court papers that she was divorced from her first husband when she married the congressman in 1990. They have five children.

Alan Grayson's attorney said they were close to reaching a settlement.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_GRAYSON_DIVORCE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-04-07-20-30-32

[think]

1. Best wishes to the Grayson family. /nt

[TheNutcracker]

2. Now we need Grayson to announce for U.S. Senate in Florida against Marco Rubio!!!

THIS is the guy, democrats in Florida are waiting for.

[brooklynite]

4. Current polling has Grayson performing worse than Murphy against all Republican candidates

[rpannier]

5. I don't put much stock in polling this early out

We were all told how Kasich and Scott were as good as toast a year out
Things change
I'm not a Florida voter, so I have no say in the primaries or election
I prefer Grayson to Murphy.
The party has gone down the road with the more electable 'moderate' Democrat and they haven't done well
I'd be curious as to what Sen Nelson thinks though and what his involvement in lining up candidates for the Senate in the past has been

[think]

7. Grayson is awesome on the issues /nt

[arcane1]

3. Too bad this qualifies as LBN.

One of many reasons I would never want to run for office

[stevenleser]

6. Looks like Lolita and her atty realized that Alan could prove bigamy and surrendered

He should get the kids and she should have to pay him child support. I hope whatever settlement she gets is minimal.

I hope those folks who gave Alan a hard time here on this feel embarrassed.

[NaturalHigh]

15. Isn't bigamy also a felony?

I agree. She should get a whopping zero in the settlement.

[stevenleser]

16. Yes. Back when this all came out I sent a press inquiry to the local prosecutors office to see if

they would be pursuing charges. Still no response. I may renew that inquiry.

[closeupready]

17. +1, +1, +1.

[mackerel]

8. It's the kids I worry about

[dreamnightwind]

9. Best of luck to him

Divorce is hard, going through it myself at the moment, yikes.

Grayson is one of the best we have when it comes to speaking out against the powerful. We need more like him.

[Lurks Often]

10. This will likely end Grayson's chances at a higher elected office

The average voter is going to look at the whole situation and view it as poorly handled by both sides, but place more of the responsibility on Grayson. After 24 years, 5 children and a net worth around $30 million it would have been wiser for him to reach a quiet agreement with his soon to be ex-wife instead of fighting over things in the public and the press.

[stevenleser]

11. That's a hilarious take. Bigamists are singularly unsympathetic. Most will understand him here.

Everyone in RL I have spoken with sympathizes with him and hates her after finding out she lied about being married and kept the lie up for all those years and exposed kids to that fraudulent relationship.

99% of folks will side with him on this. I can't fathom folks who do otherwise.

[Lurks Often]

12. It's more then just that she may or may not have lied about

having the prior marriage annulled.

It's spending 24 years with someone, having 5 kids with them, fighting over money when your net worth is near $30 million and then getting into a public and somewhat nasty divorce fight.

We're going to disagree that 99% of the AVERAGE voters will side with him on this.

[stevenleser]

13. You can't get past the fact that the entire relationship was based on a lie. Everyone will get that.

And all the rest that you tried to use to justify are actually aggravating factors.

She perpetrated a lie not just on him for 24 years but on all those kids. That makes it worse, not better. Hopefully you will see that at some point.

[Lurks Often]

14. Guess we think differently

I don't know for sure what I would do if I found myself in that the same situation and there is probably a lot going on that neither of us know.

Having said that, I'm not sure I would necessarily walk away from 24 years of marriage to a person I had 5 children with based either on the lie or the mistake that was made so long ago.

I think you are allowing your emotions and admiration for Grayson to blind to what the average voter is going to think.

[closeupready]

18. Yeah, but WAIT, Steve! Grayson has a penis; therefore, it doesn't MATTER

if she lied to him and the government, because it's just a man who was victimized.

[stevenleser]

19. I would love to think that's not it, but I really believe it is simple gender bias plus

heteronormative-ness/gender binary thinking.

In any other kind of relationship, M-M, F-F, the lying bigamist would be trashed by all concerned, and if a man did this to a woman, no one would sympathize with him here.