As many of you are aware, 2016 was one of the most difficult years of my life. To start it all off I was in a debilitating car accident in February. Following that I was arrested for a crime I did not commit (and had the case dismissed by the District Attorney's office due to clear evidence that I was innocent), my mother was told that she had cancer, I was forced to resign from my job, and I experienced the heart wrenching emotional trauma of abandonment by my wife.
In March, while still injured from the car accident and unable to turn my head, my wife attacked me in our apartment. I will spare you the details, but that incident began a chain of events that led to her being pressured by her family to report me to the police even though she was the one at fault. My refusal to speak to the police and tell them what she had done when they showed up at my door then led to me being the one that got arrested, which was followed by her testifying before the judge that I had done nothing wrong and me being released. My wife and I went through 18 hours of marital counseling which ended in her decision to abandon me and get a divorce. I'll spare you all the "he said, she said", but I did everything I could.
She had no Biblical grounds for divorce, but that is of no concern to her. To make matters worse, she slandered and defamed me to our mutual employer because she had been convinced by her side that only one of us would be able to keep our job due to the divorce (we worked for a church organization and in that world divorce is often frowned upon). I felt pressured to either throw her under the bus or risk losing my job. Again, I refused to hurt my wife. But when she was called in for her own interview she did what she told me she intended do, she lied about me and came up with a story painting me as the bad guy to keep her job and save her reputation. After that I was pressured to resign, the reason for which kept changing, and finally decided to do so a couple weeks later. I finally concluded that as a pastor and a christian I no longer wanted to work for a religious organization that would willingly come between my wife and I, putting stress and pressure on us to hurt our marriage in order to keep our jobs. Plus there seemed to be no other recourse for me, I resigned under duress.
Within a month of resigning I recieved a divorce settlement in the mail. I had a lawyer review it and was told that they were taking advantage of me. I refused to sign it at first because I did not believe there was Biblical grounds for divorce in our situation. Now after almost a year however I have come to the opposite conclusion. I recieved 2 more settlement agreements from my wife's first attorney, after which she obtained a second attorney (and more settlement agreements came my way). I recieved a summons in February that I had to respond to within 20 days and so it was at that time that I officially obtained legal counsel. For 7 months I was unemployed and not recieving unemployment benefits, using up all my reserves to pay for lawyers, bills and living expenses, and the car that we co-own.
In May her lawyer communicated that she wanted the car. We had bought the car brand new in 2015. Since getting the car I have always been the primary driver of it and am the only one that has ever made payments on it. Her lawyer stated that if I would give it to her she was willing to take up the payments on the car and refinance it so that my name could be removed from the loan. This was all put in writing. Believing them I drove the car to Florida and the exchange of the vehicle was made through my aunt. Now, a month later she has not kept her end of the agreement. She has missed a payment, and has now stated through her lawyer that she does not plan on making any payments at all and will not be refinancing the car. Also, she claimed that she surrendered the car to two different dealerships, neither of which have any record of receiving it. The bank that finances it also has no record of a payoff or a voluntary repossesion. The car is at risk of being repossesed soon however, my credit is now destroyed, and her lawyer is stating that she is filing for bankruptcy. If she is granted bankruptcy I will be the one that has to pay the entire debt on the car which has $32,000 owed on it, but she will be able to maintain posession of it. Apparently the whole agreement was a ruse, proffered in order to dupe me into giving her the vehicle so she could have it as a trophy all while nailing me with the cost of it. At this point I need to push this whole matter (including the divorce) before a judge, but in order to do so my attorney will need another $1,575 retainers fee. It was originally $5,000 but I have worked out a solution to lower the amount (praise God). I do not have the money. I am being defrauded and taken advantage of and need help paying my attorneys fees. I am asking for your assistance. Any amount that you can give would help me get closer to that $1,575 amount that I need. God graciously opened the door for me to take a call to continue doing ministry in another part of the country, this whole ordeal is just a distraction from that. Please help me bring this abuse to an end so that I can put this all behind me and move on with my life.
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