An aged private-equity honcho has been trolling his estranged spouse a lot by textual content — together with over Donald Trump’s election win — that it helped ship a Manhattan decide over the sting Tuesday.
John H. Foster, 82 — a longtime health-devices mogul and managing accomplice of the $800 million non-public fairness agency HealthPointCapital — fired off the slew of cellphone messages to spouse Stephanie previously two weeks, together with whereas she was testifying in courtroom simply ft from him, the decide heard within the warring pair’s divorce case.
“Glad Halloween,” learn one of many texts that John wrote to Stephanie whereas she testified in courtroom Oct. 31 — and he even threw in a number of “pumpkin and ghost emojis” for good measure, in accordance with one among her attorneys, Rita Glavin.
However on the finish of the seemingly innocuous seasonal greeting was a foreboding premonition.
“What goes round… COMES AROUND!!” learn the textual content, as described by Glavin in courtroom Tuesday.
John — who has claimed in the course of the former couple’s three-year-long divorce trial that he’s now destitute — additionally despatched Stephanie a textual content after final week’s presidential election with a cartoon picture of President-elect Trump holding his fist within the air.
The hubby wrote, “you OK? Since you didn’t look effectively right now,” Glavin stated.
“That’s not about, ‘I’m involved, I’m frightened about you,’ ” the lawyer argued, “That’s a taunt to a witness in the course of testimony.”
Glavin, a former federal prosecutor-turned-criminal protection lawyer, known as it “witness tampering” and cited disgraced crypto wiz child Sam Bankman-Fried, who was locked up for intimidating witnesses final yr.
Foster’s lawyer, Linda Rosenthal, tried to categorise the texts for example of John’s concern for his spouse’s well-being, however Choose Ta-Tanisha James didn’t seem to purchase it.
The Manhattan Civil Courtroom decide ordered that neither celebration within the acrimonious matrimony is allowed to textual content the opposite, “or else there will likely be sanctions.
“And that begins now,” James stated in a stern tone.
John and Stephanie Foster married in 2009 and led an extravagant way of life crammed with jets, a $10 million Fishers Island house, a sprawling Texas ranch crammed with unique African animals and a pricy Fifth Avenue pad.
Stephanie says that regardless of her husband’s claims of poverty, a damning textual content message she discovered, as revealed in an article revealed by The Submit, is proof that his declare of destitution was a part of a “net-worth technique” to depart her penniless after practically 15 years of marriage.
James’ frustration with John on Tuesday over the texts become yelling when it surfaced that he’d been lacking months of funds for his spouse’s hire and different bills.
“So let’s get that accomplished — right now,” James boomed at Foster and his authorized crew.
“Ms. Foster’s hire is to be paid. Spousal assist is to be paid.
“You’ll not preserve Ms. Foster from receiving the monies this courtroom has already ordered,” James continued from the bench.
“That bothers me.”
“It appears like gamesmanship is happening,” the decide stated, “and I do know that’s not what’s occurring, however that’s the way it feels.”
The listening to ended early when Foster out of the blue left the courtroom room complaining of chest pains and courtroom officers known as an ambulance for him.
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