By MOLEQL @ Adobe Stock
In The Wall Street Journal, Candace Taylor discusses the increasingly complex techniques being used to deprive spouses of assets during divorce. She writes:
The Pritzker estate, a roughly 50,000-square-foot estate on a promontory in the hills above Los Angeles, is one of the largest private homes in the country. At times run by a staff of more than 25 people, it has a bowling alley, a hairdressing area, a gym with changing rooms and an infinity swimming pool overlooking the city skyline.
The longtime home of billionaire Hyatt hotel heir Tony Pritzker and philanthropist Jeanne Pritzker, the mammoth estate has been at the center of the couple’s bitter divorce fight since they separated in 2022. Now, with the divorce settled for an undisclosed sum, the estate is slated to go on the market, likely asking somewhere between $150 million and $200 million, according to local real-estate agents. If the home fetches its price, it would be one of the most expensive homes ever to sell in L.A.
The listing caps a saga that has engulfed the wealthy and prominent Pritzker family, shining a light on their lavish lifestyle as well as the complex machinations the superrich use to shield their wealth from taxes, the prying eyes of the public, and sometimes each other.
Tony is the son of Hyatt hotel chain co-founder Donald Pritzker and brother of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. He and Jeanne, both in their 60s, were married for more than 30 years and have six children. The couple spent years building their gated estate on Angelo Drive in the exclusive Beverly Hills Post Office area—one of multiple homes they shared—using it to host parties attended by the likes of Al Gore, Jane Fonda, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen.
Completed in 2011, the Angelo Drive estate is accessed by a long, steep driveway flanked by landscaped hedges, according to documents filed with the city. Surrounding a central courtyard, the main house has a large, high-ceilinged atrium lighted by a skylight. Fronted by a fence up to 8 feet high in places, the estate also has a tennis court, guesthouse, staff quarters and a detached recreation room and home theater.
The property has at least 12 to 15 bedrooms, said local real-estate agent Rayni Williams, who has attended events at the Pritzker estate. Its view is one of the best in Los Angeles. “You feel like you’re floating in the view,” she said. The vista is especially remarkable given the home’s massive size, she said. Most houses of comparable square footage are located in flatter areas rather than in the hills.
When Tony left Jeanne in the fall of 2022, the L.A. estate quickly became a focal point of their rancorous divorce. Jeanne wanted to continue living in the mammoth house and using it for the philanthropic events she said it was built for. Tony wanted to sell; he has since paid $19.5 million for a four-bedroom penthouse spanning about 8,000 square feet at Westwood’s Beverly West condominium, where the R&B star the Weeknd once owned a home, according to property records.
After the couple split, Jeanne stayed in the Angelo Drive house and Tony moved out, according to court documents. But she was shocked when Tony’s lawyers informed her that the house and its contents—down to the forks, knives and spoons—were technically owned not by the couple, but by a complex web of trusts and limited liability companies. Moreover, Tony’s lawyers said Jeanne wasn’t entitled to live in the house because she wasn’t a beneficiary of the trust that owns it. The properties she thought the couple owned personally weren’t part of the marital estate, which is normally divided 50/50 between divorcing couples.
Jeanne is one of a growing number of estranged spouses—usually wives—to find themselves in a similar position. The wealthy frequently put their assets into trusts and limited liability companies, which can be useful for estate planning, reducing taxes and maintaining privacy. High-end homes across the country are often purchased through LLCs or trusts rather than in the names of their owners. When it comes to divorce, however, these entities are increasingly being used to shield assets from being split between the warring parties, according to attorney Jeff Diamant, an expert in divorce fraud who is not involved in the Pritzker case.
“There is very definitely a rise in using various techniques to try to shield assets from spouses in the event of a divorce,” he said. “We’re seeing significantly increasing numbers of, let’s just say husbands, trying to hide money from their spouses.”
Jenica Paulson, the estranged wife of hedge-fund manager John Paulson, has accused him of hiding billions in secret trusts since he filed for divorce in 2021. He says the trusts were for the benefit of their children and that she knew about them. In 2013, Elena Rybolovleva filed a lawsuit alleging that her husband, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, used trusts to purchase real estate around the world to protect money that she could potentially win in their divorce. In one of the biggest divorce settlements in history, Rybolovlev in 2014 was ordered by a Swiss court to pay roughly 4 billion Swiss francs, or the equivalent of about $4.5 billion at that time. But the decision was reversed by an appeals court, which ruled that Rybolovleva wasn’t entitled to the money in trust, and limited the settlement to about $603 million. Rybolovleva’s attorney said she planned to appeal, but the parties ended up settling.
During their divorce, Marie Bosarge claimed her husband, Texas financier Wilbur Edwin “Ed” Bosarge, used a network of trusts and LLCs to prevent her from accessing what she said was billions he had earned during their marriage. The case settled in 2020, said Wayne Dolcefino, whose investigative media-consulting firm was involved in the case. Marie received a larger settlement than she was originally offered, likely due to the publicity surrounding the case, Dolcefino said, but far less than half of what Marie claimed was the couple’s community property. “Those trusts appeared to be impenetrable,” he said.
Read more here.
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