Missing Florida Millionaire’s Wife Wanted Prenup Voided
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ABC News(NEW YORK) — Less than two months before millionaire Guma Aguiar vanished, his wife filed a legal document asking a Florida court to overturn the couple’s prenuptial agreement.
In the April filing, obtained by ABC News, she recounted the “living nightmare” that was her marriage while her husband suffered a six-month-long “manic episode.”
Guma Aguiar, 35, was last seen on June 19 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Early the next morning, his 31-foot fishing boat washed up on a Fort Lauderdale beach with the engine running and lights on, but with no sign of its Brazilian-born owner.
Since then, Aguiar’s mother, Ellen Aguiar, and wife, Jamie Aguiar, have been embroiled in a nasty legal fight for control of his assets, valued at over $100 million.
Aguiar’s body has not been found and questions have arisen about whether he may, in fact, be alive.
In the prenup-related filing, Jamie Aguiar alleges that her husband misrepresented his worth in the prenup. Her attorney, William Scherer, has said that the current prenup entitles Jamie Aguiar to only $500,000, despite her husband’s fortune.
Jamie Aguiar claims that Guma Aguiar was negotiating his interest in Portland Energy Partners, L.P., while the prenup was being prepared. Portland Energy owned nearly all of the equity in Leor Energy, a company run by Aguiar and his uncle Thomas Kaplan, which was eventually sold for $2.5 billion.
Aguiar and Kaplan had been in a nasty and costly legal battle over the division of the profits from the sale since 2009.
“The timing of these transactions is highly suspect,” Scherer wrote in the wife’s filing.
The filing claims there was “a conspiracy between Guma and members of his family and key advisors to keep this information from Jamie.”
The prenup specified that Jamie Aguiar was not entitled to any future equity interest in Portland Energy or any related entity, according to the filing.
The document also details Jamie Aguiar’s account of the couple’s turbulent marriage because of Guma Aguiar’s “severe bipolar disorder, psychosis, illicit and prescription drug abuse, and psychological problems” for which he was undergoing treatment.
“While Guma Aguiar’s psychiatric hospitalization, treatment, and medication regimen have been largely effective in tempering his manner for the time being, Jamie has legitimate concerns that this period of calm before the storm may be short-lived if Guma chooses to discontinue his treatment and/or medication, as he has done several times in the past,” Scherer wrote.
“With this uncertainty looming, it has become necessary for Jamie to make suitable arrangements for the physical safety and financial security of her four children, as well as her own person,” the filing said.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio