New Jersey's gay ex-governor Jim McGreevey and his estranged wife Dina Matos McGreevey showed up for court Tuesday morning to begin the process of ending their marriage.
The first three days of the trial will be closed to the media as Union County Superior Court Judge Karen Cassidy considers custody issues surrounding the couple's 6-year-old daughter.
The issues to be decided in the divorce settlement involve custody, alimony and child support, and whether McGreevey, now openly gay, committed fraud by marrying a woman.
Matos McGreevey, 41, is seeking $600,000 for time she would have spent at the governor's mansion had her husband not resigned in disgrace. McGreevey, 50, stepped down during his first term after a nationally televised speech in which he acknowledged being "a gay American" and having an affair with a male staffer. The staffer has denied the affair and said he was sexually harassed by McGreevey.
Since his resignation in the fall of 2004, both McGreevey and his soon-to-be-ex have written books about their time together, including their sex lives. She claims she never knew he was gay until just before he told the rest of the world. He claims their marriage was "a contrivance on both our parts," but that he fulfilled the marriage contract by providing companionship and a child.
The couple has continued to stay in the news through a series of public spats and catty comments. Neither has heeded stern suggestions from the judge that they settle the case rather than expend the emotional energy and significant money for a divorce trial.
The most sensational witness could be Teddy Pedersen, a 29-year-old former aide who claims he had regular three-way sexual encounters with the McGreeveys beginning when they were dating in 1999 and ending two years later, after they were married and McGreevey had been elected governor.
John Post, a lawyer representing Matos McGreevey, is seeking to bar Pedersen's testimony. Matos McGreevey claims the encounters never happened. McGreevey says they did.
McGreevey, who often described himself as a devout Catholic while in public office, now lives with a male partner and has officially been received into the Episcopal religion as a priest. He also has been accepted into the Master of Divinity program at Manhattan's renowned General Theological Seminary.
Matos McGreevey, who until recently worked at Columbus Hospital in Newark, can often be seen providing commentary on cable television shows, most recently providing analysis when New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned amid a prostitution scandal.
© 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
|
