Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin scored a legal victory in his divorce case when a Cook County judge ruled Wednesday that his wife may no longer insist she signed their prenuptial agreement under duress after visiting a psychologist with her husband-to-be.
The ruling is a setback for Anne Dias Griffin.
One of her lawyers said in court Wednesday that striking the visit would make it difficult for her to make her case that she was coerced into signing the prenuptial agreement.
Many of the court filings of Dias Griffin, who has been trying to have their 2003 prenuptial agreement declared invalid, have pointed to a therapy session two days before her wedding that she has said led her to sign the prenuptial agreement. The therapist sided with Griffin, Dias Griffin said in filings, telling Dias Griffin that she was being difficult.
Dias Griffin has said that the psychologist’s advice to avoid conflict on the eve of their wedding made her relent and sign the document. Dias Griffin also has said in filings that her husband tricked her into going to the session by not disclosing that he already had a professional relationship with the psychologist.
Griffin, who in July filed for divorce from his money-manager wife, has said in filings that disclosure of the therapy session by Dias Griffin violated the Illinois Mental Health & Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act.
Griffin, founder and chief executive of Chicago-based Citadel, had sought to have the discussion of the psychologist’s visit thrown out of the divorce proceedings.
On Wednesday, Judge Grace Dickler granted Griffin’s “motion to strike” after hearing about 90 minutes of arguments from both sides. Dias Griffin also had maintained in filings that she wasn’t precluded from disclosing communications between her and the psychologist.
But Dickler said that the confidentiality act applies to the therapy session, and that Griffin didn’t waive his rights for his wife to disclose it.
In a courtroom of the Daley Center in Chicago on Wednesday, one of Griffin’s lawyers argued that mental-health records, including the mere mention of a visit to a psychologist, should be held in confidence.
Both Griffin and his wife received counseling from the psychologist, and therefore Dias Griffin may not carve out what was said to her, Michael Berger, principal of Berger Schatz in Chicago, told the court. Dias Griffin has no right to waive the privilege of her husband in disclosing the premarital visit to the psychologist, he said.
Griffin, the wealthiest person in Illinois, has said that his money-manager wife understood the prenuptial agreement, and, one day before their wedding, signed it in the office of one of her lawyers, and initialed every page.
The judge asked one of Dias Griffin’s lawyers, Howard London, of Beermann Pritikin Mirabelli Swerdlove in Chicago, about the fact that the signing of the prenuptial agreement occurred in the offices of one of Dias Griffin’s lawyers after the visit to the psychologist.
London said it was naive to suggest that Dias Griffin no longer felt coerced by the psychologist’s visit just because she signed the prenuptial agreement a day later in the presence of her lawyers. Griffin used the therapy session to commit a wrong, so Dias Griffin had no choice but to mention the joint meeting with a psychologist, London said. Privilege shouldn’t be granted to someone who makes a farce out of a therapy session, he said.
He noted that Dias Griffin didn’t make any disclosures about her husband’s mental-health records, his mental health or his exchanges with the therapist during the session.
“It’s not about him,” London said. “It’s about her.”
Griffin initiated the divorce, and has said that his wife signed the prenuptial agreement voluntarily, London pointed out. And now Griffin is trying to say the joint visit to the psychologist should be kept confidential, but the act of striking the visit to the therapist makes it difficult for Dias Griffin to make her case that she was coerced into signing the prenuptial agreement, London said.
Dias Griffin was in the courtroom, sitting with two of her lawyers.
A representative for Dias Griffin declined to comment on the ruling.
Other sticking points still remain about the prenuptial agreement, including whether, in Dias Griffin’s words, it’s “unconscionable” given that Griffin is a multibillionaire and she has assets of about $50 million before tax liabilities.
Twitter @beckyyerak
