Former Dodgers’ Co-Owner Wants Judge to Rescind Her $131 Million Divorce Settlement
Published at | Updated at
Vince Bucci/Getty Images(LOS ANGELES) — The ex-wife of former Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt claims her $131 million divorce settlement is not enough. Not nearly enough.
A judge in Los Angeles County Superior Court heard closing arguments Wednesday in the divorce dispute.
Last year, McCourt agreed to a divorce settlement giving her $131 million plus a tax indemnity and splitting her residential real estate with her husband.
While McCourt believed she was receiving half of the assets she shared with her husband, only two weeks later, the Dodgers were sold for $2.15 billion to a group that included former Los Angeles Lakers player Magic Johnson. It was the most money ever paid for a professional sports team.
“I was surprised I could have made such a huge mistake,” she said in her court testimony last week. Her attorneys have argued she was short-changed about $770 million.
In her legal complaint to quash the divorce settlement, she accuses her ex-husband of fraud, failure to make required disclosures, perjury, undue influence, and breach of fiduciary duty, among other actions.
Neither of the McCourts could be reached for comment. Their attorneys did not respond to requests for comment.
The McCourts met at Georgetown University and were married on Nov. 3, 1979. Frank McCourt is president of McCourt Group, a commercial real estate development firm.
They have been residents of California since 2004, when the couple acquired the Dodgers and its related assets, which were the McCourts’ principal assets. Their assets included “the entities owning the Los Angeles Dodgers, Dodgers Stadium and its vast parking lots, the television rights to Dodger baseball games, and approximately 276 acres of real estate in the area of Dodger Stadium.”
“Before the separation, Jamie played a significant role in the Dodger organization, but not in significant financial dealings,” according to her court complaint to withdraw the divorce settlement.
Jamie was once president and CEO of the baseball team.
On the other hand, her ex-husband “controlled and had access to the complex financial information required to evaluate the Dodger assets,” Jamie’s complaint states.
According to her complaint, in 2004 he told her the market value of the Dodger assets could be as much as $2 billion.
In Oct. 2009, Jamie filed divorce papers. The marriage was dissolved a year later. In June 2011, the Dodgers filed for bankruptcy protection. The team later emerged from bankruptcy after the sale last year to Guggenheim Baseball Management.
After the divorce ensued, Frank denied his earlier statements that the Dodgers could be worth $2 billion. Instead, he said their “assets had a current value less than $300 million…” according to her complaint.
Before Jamie agreed to the settlement, she believed, “based on what Frank represented,” that the net value of their assets, including the Dodger assets, was “in the range of $300 million.”
Jamie’s complaint states that as “designated control person” for the Dodgers, he “fired” her, and “from that point forward, he completely excluded her from every aspect of management…”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio