The estranged spouse of an aged financier griped in Manhattan court docket Tuesday that he gave her a measly allowance of $10,000 a month — then slashed it in half when she requested him to start out his property planning.
Stephanie Foster, 57, added that hubby John H. Foster — an 82-year-old private-equity bigshot now claiming dire monetary straits of their multiyear divorce continuing — ultimately dwindled her allowance to nothing, forcing her to submit expense reviews to his administration firm to get reimbursed.
She complained on the stand that even his preliminary hefty month-to-month payout to her “was lower than what I used to be making on fee,” referring to what she raked in as an funding banker at Deutsche Financial institution earlier than giving up her profession six months after marrying Foster in 2009.
Stephanie claims that her husband — who made his fortune within the medical-device world as managing companion of the $800 million personal fairness agency HealthPointCapital — minimize her allowance in half about 5 years in the past, when she requested for a “modicum” of property planning.
He then eradicated it altogether and made her submit detailed expense reviews to his household administration firm with a purpose to be reimbursed, she mentioned.
Her testimony was an effort to supply a rebuttal to her husband’s claims that, due to her profligate spending on garments and different gadgets, he now has a internet price his attorneys have described “barely a constructive internet price, if in any respect.”
“My husband is accusing me of spending down his total $45 million internet price,” plus the tens of thousands and thousands extra he earned throughout their 15-year marriage, “which implies I used to be spending $1.5 million a month on myself, on garments,” she mentioned.
Stephanie has famous that whereas her husband was crying poverty, he nonetheless was jetting backwards and forwards from Florida to New York Metropolis for Botox, hair-dyeing and nail care appointments.
She mentioned she solely had entry to her private Chase Financial institution checking account throughout their marriage.
Shortly earlier than the pair wed in 2009, Stephanie mentioned, she was introduced with a pre-nup — which she declined to signal, since it could have left her “with nothing.”
She claimed it included a stability sheet displaying John had a internet price of $80 million — and he or she had no purpose to doubt it.
“Why would I?” she mentioned on the stand. “We had been courting for a yr, he had a really large life-style, he had a Gulfstream jet, he had a private-equity agency, a giant ranch in Texas, a really good home on Fishers Island [in New York], and he had been concerned on Wall Avenue for 50 years, so no, I might don’t have any purpose to not imagine him.”
“Aside from the truth that I used to be going to be his third spouse,” she added. “However that wasn’t a priority.”
Stephanie pegged her husband’s bills associated simply to the properties he owned and rented in Manhattan, Fishers Island and Palm Seaside — plus a sprawling Texas looking ranch stuffed with unique, imported African animals — at $3.4 million yearly.
She claimed that when she as soon as requested him about life insurance coverage, he instructed her he was “too costly to insure” and that retirement accounts had been for “suckers.”
In the meantime, her husband’s crew mentioned it’s wanting into potential criminality round her supplying a photograph she snapped of a textual content message dialog on her husband’s cellphone, which exhibits him celebrating a “net-worth technique” that left Stephanie with the impression that he was bankrupt.
Within the message, Foster thanks a household lawyer, stating “Your net-worth technique labored. Steph is shocked,” including that his spouse believes him to be “bankrupt.”
His attorneys Tuesday accused Stephanie of improperly accessing his cellphone and of violating her husband’s privateness and attorney-client privilege.
“Mr. Foster didn’t consent to Mrs. Foster accessing his personal communications,” mentioned John’s lawyer, Linda Rosenthal, in court docket.
In doing so, she could have simply confirmed the authenticity of not simply the textual content message but additionally of the “net-worth technique” as a authorized maneuver, which might increase moral considerations about John’s net-worth statements given underneath oath, mentioned Stephanie’s lawyer, BriAnne Copp, in court docket.
”We’re assured that the accusations made by Mr. Foster as we speak in opposition to Mrs. Foster will likely be discovered by the court docket to be with out authorized or factual benefit,” mentioned Lanny Davis, a authorized advisor to Stephanie. “They’re a distraction from the important thing points at hand.”
Davis added that he hopes John can “present transparency round his textual content message celebrating what he known as his ‘net-worth technique.’”
“Particularly we hope he’ll clarify the phrase ‘technique’ within the context of what’s presupposed to be customary required kind assertion disclosing his correct and full monetary info to not solely Mrs. Foster, however the court docket as properly,” Davis mentioned in a press release to The Submit.
The implications of the message’s content material didn’t escape Decide Ta-Tanisha James.
“If that’s certainly authenticated, and if the substance thereof is correct, there’s a sign that there was a misdirection … as to Mr. Foster’s assertion of internet price and moreover, implicit in which can be points as as to whether or not there have been some kind of moral violations,” James mentioned.
After the listening to, the Fosters sat within the hallway outdoors court docket ready for his or her attorneys — Stephanie scrolling by way of her cellphone and John yards away, apparently deep in thought staring into house.
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