Kerkorian’s Ex-Wife Asks for Legal Fees
Former tennis pro Lisa Bonder Kerkorian took her billionaire ex-husband to court on Thursday, seeking more than $500,000 for legal expenses arising from her quest for a record-setting $320,000 in monthly child support.
At the end of the day, she left the courtroom in tears after Superior Court Judge Lee Smalley Edmon delayed ruling on the request. “I can’t afford this,” Kerkorian cried as she ran down the hallway toward the exit, clutching a stuffed Easter bunny wrapped in cellophane.
The judge did rule that Kerkorian’s lawyers can view Kirk Kerkorian’s tax returns to help determine how much he should pay to support daughter, Kira, now 4. And the judge limited how much pretrial questioning Lisa Kerkorian must face from her former husband’s lawyers, who are probing during depositions into details such as Kira’s choice of breakfast cereal.
Although the case ostensibly is about how much money it takes to properly raise a billionaire’s daughter, much of the argument in court and in legal filings has focused on Kirk Kerkorian’s wealth and Lisa Kerkorian’s conduct. Neither has held back on the mud-slinging.
The allegations against Lisa Kerkorian, 37, include fraud, deceit and faking a DNA test. Kirk is accused of using his wealth and power to crush her in court.
During a contentious daylong hearing, attorneys disclosed that Kirk Kerkorian, 84, could not be Kira’s biological father. The reason: He’s sterile.
And in court documents, one of Lisa Kerkorian’s friends raised the possibility that Kira’s father is a Hollywood writer/producer who is involved in another paternity dispute.
“This is a child support case. This isn’t a trash-everybody case,” Lisa Kerkorian’s lawyer, Steven A. Kolodny, told the judge. Still, the point was lost Thursday in the heat of what Kolodny called “ultra, ultra hardball litigation tactics.”
“This is a child support case in name only,” said Kirk Kerkorian’s lawyer, Dennis M. Wasser. He accused Lisa Kerkorian of “using child support as a vehicle to enrich herself.”
Also involved in the case is the wife of Lee Iaccoca, Darrien, who has been dragged into the fray in a courthouse version of six degrees of celebrity separation.
Family friend Iaccoca said in a declaration that Lisa Kerkorian told her in June 1997--a period when she and Kirk were on the outs--that she was dating the writer/producer. “Later that summer,” Iaccoca said, Lisa Kerkorian informed her that she was pregnant and “was nervous” because she had been intimate with both the writer/producer and Kerkorian. Lisa later told her that a “blood test” had identified Kerkorian as the father, Iaccoca said.
In her own declaration, Lisa Kerkorian downplayed her friendship with Iaccoca, calling her “an opportunistic social climber” who “would do anything to ingratiate herself to Kirk.”
Kirk Kerkorian, majority shareholder of MGM’s film studio and casino empire, has acknowledged paternity and taken financial responsibility for Kira’s upbringing in previous court proceedings. He is asking the judge to maintain the monthly support payments at no higher than the $50,000 he currently is paying.
Wasser charged that Lisa Kerkorian’s “entire case is a lie,” adding that his client shouldn’t be forced to subsidize it by footing the legal bills. Since she’s worth $12 million, she can afford to pay her lawyer, Wasser said.
Under California law, the judge can order Kirk Kerkorian, who is worth an estimated $6 billion, to pay Lisa Kerkorian’s legal expenses because of the disparity in their incomes.
Wasser urged the judge to look at the inconsistencies in Lisa Kerkorian’s story before awarding the fees. He claims her story has changed more times than MGM’s stock price--116 times during a recent two-day deposition.
Lisa insisted until recently that Kira was Kirk’s child, and that she had results of a DNA test to prove it. Now, she says, everybody knew all along that he couldn’t be the father. She’s admitting in court papers that she lied about Kirk’s paternity, but claims it was part of a mutual plot they hatched to give the corporate raider a more cuddly image.
“Kirk told me he did not want anyone other than me and his doctors to know that he was sterile because he wanted to be known around the world, and among his rich friends, as an 80-year-old who fathered a beautiful young daughter,” she said in a court declaration. “It fraudulently raised his ‘stock’ in the male world, fraudulently established him as a virile, sexually active octogenarian and gave him some ‘kinder, gentler’ publicity.”
She has admitted faking the DNA test, attorneys said. This was accomplished, court papers say, by collecting a swab of saliva from Kirk Kerkorian’s adult daughter, Tracy, under the ruse that it would be used for her teenage son’s science project. Lisa Kerkorian then represented the sample as Kira’s when she sent it, along with a sample from Kirk, to a lab in Seattle.
A hearing is set for May.
