Peter Schorsch
The lawyer for the ex-wife of House District 64 candidate Terry Power disputes Power’s previous claim that he doesn’t owe his ex-wife any alimony, according to a letter obtained by Florida Politics.
Rather, lawyer Andrew D. Reder told Power – an Oldsmar retirement plan consultant – that ex-wife Murielle Fournier is in fact legally entitled to “$87,904 plus statutory interest,” noting she “is simply seeking to collect the past due amount you are court-ordered to pay.”
What’s more, Reder said in the letter that “in light of the approximate $74,000 you have recently donated and loaned to your political campaign for the Florida House of Representatives, your braggadocios claims of being a ‘successful business owner,’ and your pledge to donate 100 percent of your salary if elected, your ability to pay Ms. Fournier is clear and evident.”
Their divorce case, first filed in 2008, has been called “the divorce from hell” by the Tampa Bay Times, spawning a nearly 6,000-word story by one of that paper’s Pulitzer Prize winners.
Power has gone on the record refusing to talk to Florida Politics, saying “I’ll be litigating the matter in court, not in the media.” Fournier declined comment, referring questions to Reder, who also declined to comment.
Power has tweeted about “Florida’s outdated alimony laws,” saying he “can’t ever marry my fiancee of eight years … My alimony obligation would increase by $3,000 a month if I did!”
Reder quoted from the 2012 “final judgment” in the matter, which said Power paid Fournier only “$100 for alimony in December 2010, and … has not paid anything since. The Court finds that the past due alimony is $87,904. At the final hearing, the Husband did not contest this amount…”
He added that Power’s “willful failure to pay and intentional divestiture of assets is a contemptuous violation of the Court’s Final Judgment evincing your blatant disregard for Florida law and our judicial system.” Fournier has a contempt motion pending against Power.
Power is challenging incumbent state Rep. Jamie Grant in the Republican primary for the seat, which covers northwest Hillsborough County and a slice of eastern Pinellas County. The area leans heavily Republican.
The primary is Aug. 28; the general election is Nov. 6. Previous stories are here and here.
16 comments
Rita Anderson
August 21, 2018 at 11:14 am
This is absolutely offensive journalism. Divorce is already a hard and ultimately devestating life event. Seeing a politician try and torture a family again by aiding the reopening of a divorce against an opener is a new low. I feel bad that his ex wife is allowing herself to be used as a puppet but greed is an ugly thing. James doesn’t have kids of his own so he doesn’t realize how messed up this is. He destroyed tons of families with his CareSync organization so what’s one more family being collateral damage caused by JW Grant?
Mike Mcauliffe
August 21, 2018 at 2:59 pm
This article is totally biased. Anyone that knows anything about Family Law i. Florida knows that the laws are grossly unfair and outdated. Attacking Terry Power to proliferate this injustice to thousands of Floridians is offensive.
Jennifer Herbert
August 21, 2018 at 6:12 pm
Terry Power helps run the First Husbands advocacy group on Facebook. That is apparent by some of the comments in the most recent pinned post and the constant pushing of his candidate posts. What is also not being revealed is that while hiding behind the anonymity of that page, Power rules up and incites the followers to engage is cruel and.abusive bullying behavior. From fat shaming a teenaged child, to threatening to hire private investigators to follow people to posting inflammatory lies about events that have been covered incorrectly through the media, Power relishes in the control he has over these people. He will on occasion like a comment from one of the followers or make benign remarks himself of which his meaning is EXTREMELY clear. He is nothing but a regular bully. He doesn’t want to litigate this is the public eye, so please explain why he called tbt in order to get them to write a story about the actual divorce. His agenda is very clear. He is a deadbeat, abusive nasty and mean. And he won’t say anything now because the primary date is too close. If we were months away he would use the fl hags page in order to try to silence me yet again. And I am not the only one who has had to deal with Mr. Abuser. I am one of the few that doesn’t care what he will try to do to me, because I was married to someone just like him and I didn’t let him silence me either. So come on Terry, people are watching. Give it your best. Which flying monkey will you send after me now?
Debbie Leff-Kelapire
August 21, 2018 at 7:13 pm
John Waldorf said it best. The only thing I can add is that Terry is paying his court ordered alimony that was established after judges had five years to examine his case. Perhaps the ex wife should be employed as well and supplement her own living and take on some personal responsibility for herself financially.
Jennifer Herbert
August 21, 2018 at 8:37 pm
Perhaps the flying monkeys should see that his ex is employed rather than taking his word as gospel. Maybe even stop being mouthpieces for him would be a good start. But that would be MUCH too difficult for their agenda. They have to villify ex wives which is why they sent a woman to post. So they can say they aren’t abusive to women and children. I am not afraid to call a spade a spade. And this folks is a spade.
Jennifer Herbert
August 21, 2018 at 9:15 pm
And of course they won’t engage. Typical abuser agenda. Engage only when it suits you and then grey rock and make your target look insane. Well you can block me on Facebook, you can block me on twitter, but #TerryPower works great. People can find that. I have thousands of screenshots and will be sharing as many as I can between now and then. Silence me now.
Debbie Leff-Kelapire
August 22, 2018 at 3:38 pm
After one gets divorced, they have basically two options. They can seek to find a more suitable match and find love which makes life wonderful or chase an ex spouse through the court system to get every last cent “owed” to them, filing motions, depositions etc etc. Sounds like true fulfillment to me.
Jennifer Herbert
August 22, 2018 at 8:19 pm
Well you got alimony didn’t you? Granted temporary alimony, but you were not as old as Terry’s ex, and you had a start on your education. Also you were not married as Iong. And let’s not forget the magazine that called you one of the ‘mean girls’ shall we?
Jennifer Herbert
August 22, 2018 at 8:20 pm
And if you are so happy in your life, why are you even here fighting Terry’s battles for him.
Scott Whigham
August 22, 2018 at 11:45 pm
Just another screed from a paid political shill.
Terry Power has zero legal issues w his divorce from 10 years, ago.
Funny that his case was mysteriously reopened within days of his filing to run against crooked Jamie Grant…who pays the “author” of this article for PR representation.
This will all be over Tuesday.
Tammy
August 23, 2018 at 6:22 am
A divorce that took 5 years to finalize and now 10 years later she wants back in his life? This is what perm alimony does. It keeps those EXes clinging on. To the past. To the bitterness. To the lonely nothingness. Maybe if she had negotiated a reasonable settlement (she was offered a million dollars but that wasn’t enough) about 14 years ago she may have actually moved on and gotten a life. She is the epitome of all that is wrong with alimony and divorce laws.
Hey Peter have you drawn up the post nup offering to pay your wife PERM alimony should you get divorced? Or are you so far up the BAR’s rump that you would rather litigate it for 5-10 years and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers?
Lee Kallett
August 23, 2018 at 12:59 pm
I know Terry Power personally and he’s an upstanding, straight shooter. This attempt to discredit him is shameful and fake news. It’s a blatant effort to deflect attention from his opponent’s potentially criminal handling of Care-Sync. Tallahassee needs more people like Terry Power who has business acumen and scruples.
Jack P.
August 23, 2018 at 7:36 pm
This story is completely false and Mr. Powers opponent is resorting to lies and garbage instead of fixing his own corruption that is what a good person does so James Grant chooses to lie because he’s desperate
Fake news!
Vote for Mr. Powers
Terry Power
August 27, 2018 at 3:22 pm
No Contempt finding in court today, as expected. Sorry! Now, let’s win this election and change these broken Family Court laws.
Debbie Leff-Kelapire
August 27, 2018 at 4:11 pm
As I’m sure you know Peter, a Pinellas County Circuit Court found Terry Power NOT in contempt of court. Maybe a retraction to this is in order since you have the facts wrong.
Jan Killilea
August 27, 2018 at 6:08 pm
Of course his campaign would say that! Maybe you need to catch up with the facts of today’s hearing. It wasn’t on the agenda as accurately reported by Florida Politics 2 hours ago! Headline, “HD 64 candidate Terry Power escapes contempt of court finding.”
Comments are closed.