Man Sues Ex-Wife for Fraud, Claims She Never Loved Him : Law: An Anaheim banker is pursuing the unusual strategy to keep his former spouse from sharing property he acquired before they married 16 years ago.

Taking a novel approach to matrimony and litigation, an Anaheim banker is charging that his ex-wife defrauded him because she did not love him when they were married 16 years ago.

The Santa Ana couple, Ronald Askew, 50, and Bonette Askew, 46, were granted a divorce in November, 1992. At the time, a court ruled that they should have joint custody of their two children.

But in a separate civil trial that began Monday, Ronald Askew is claiming that four pieces of property he owned before his marriage to Bonette Askew should not be included as community property in their divorce settlement. The trial has interrupted a final property settlement in divorce court.

Under California divorce law, responsibility for the failure of a marriage does not affect the division of community property. Thus, attorneys for both sides said, a suit alleging fraud is the only remaining avenue for Ronald Askew to remove the four pieces of property from the settlement.

Ronald Askew, president of Pacific Inland Bank, has cited statements made by his ex-wife in pretrial depositions as well as remarks made in a joint counseling session in March, 1991, to show that she never loved him.

Bonette Askew, however, insists that she did love her husband when they were married, and that the civil suit is simply a maneuver to get around California’s no-fault divorce laws.

“I have never said that I did not love him,” she said in an interview Monday. “Those statements were never made.”

While the civil case is being tried, Bonette Askew said her ex-husband retains possession of all community property, and that she and her two children live in a rented Santa Ana home on $3,400 a month in court-ordered support.

“This case is about breach of trust,” Ronald Askew said Monday. “It is nothing about breach of love. It’s about the fact that, prior to my marriage, certain statements were made to me that I believe (were) false. And that, after my marriage I conveyed certain of my assets into the name of my ex-wife that were to be held in trust for the benefit of my older children” from a previous marriage.

Bonette Askew described her husband as “a man who likes to be in control of everything, and when he found that he wasn’t in control of our situation . . . he decided to try to go after everything.”

In her view, Bonette Askew said, the case is about “power and control and trying to get back at me, trying to destroy me.”

As jury selection began Monday, attorneys for both sides said the approach is unusual, but not unprecedented. Prospective jurors were quizzed on their views on marriage, divorce and child custody. Opening statements are scheduled to begin today.