NY Divorce Consultants Fighting the corrupt New York Divorce Industry!

Dishonest Financial Evaluators in NY Divorce

One of the pitfalls of contested divorce in New York is the expensive and unregulated world of financial evaluators. Financial Evaluators, sometimes called forensic accountants make their living by handouts of court ordered fees. It's an entirely blind process to litigants, one day the evaluators appear and their power and fees are significant.

One of the dishonest ones that I came across was Gerald DeFeo of White Plains.

Hours after the appointment Mr. DeFeo raced to his fax machine to send over his demands and notify us that for $7,000 he'd take a cursory look at our records and issue a one page letter report, delivered verbally to the lawyers in the case only. Mr. DeFeo was effectively charging about $250 and hour and the Divorce Attorneys were charging about $350 an hour. So after forcibly paying $7,000 to Mr. DeFeo I was going to have pay about $1,500 in legal fees for the private screening of Mr. DeFeo's one page summary report but it was clear the court-ordered fee wasn't getting any type of forensic financial evaluation whatsoever.

Mr. DeFeo's work was innane and unsophisticated. He did some very cursory analysis of my business and rather than doing any real analysis he based his valuation on an expired acquisition offer. Mr. DeFeo informed us that if we wanted the full report, it would cost $25,000 paid in advance.

Gerry DeFeo hinted that he was a money grabber sitting around lazily for court ordered handouts, but when a trial commenced 2 years later Mr. DeFeo showed his true colors as a complete money hungry charlatan. While Mr. DeFeo had been hired as a 'Court Ordered Neutral' and a supposed expert in forensic accounting, Mr. DeFeo is able to instantly sell his services to the highest bidder once the court ordered report is done. Therefore, my ex, who was funded with off the books money, paid Mr. DeFeo a retainer to show up at trial and DeFeo and his old friend, my Ex's lawyer, and the Judge had a ball with me in trial as I struggled Pro Se.

Mr. DeFeo stood in the witness chair smirking and openly laughing at my attempts to ask him questions. He wouldn't admit that a small business that sees its revenue decline by over 70% to a point where it was no longer viable had lost value, there simply wasn't evidence of that. He wouldn't admit that the conditions of a business could change in 2 years and that cursory one page valuation of 2007 wouldn't be valid in 2009. Mr. DeFeo shed any inkling of neutrality and instead showed his true colors as a money-grabbing, dishonest cog in the grossly corrupt New York Divorce Industry.

All told Mr. DeFeo fleeced my family of over $20,000 to deliver the weakest forensic report imaginable and lie on the witness stand under oath. If there is any integrity to court-appointed-neutrality it is in a joke in the urinal in the Westchester County Supreme Court House, but certainly doesnt' exist in Mr. DeFeo or in the divorce industry. While Mr. DeFeo was happy to exploit his neutrality and turn his court appointment into a biased fee grab, he is only playing by the broken rules that New York State has established for the NY State Divorce Industry. Mr. DeFeo has no professional integrity but he's only exploiting a broken system

So If you come across Mr. DeFeo in courtappointed assignement be prepared to be fleeced, but if you can avoid creeps like DeFeo, you should do so at all costs. Save yourself the fleecing and go out an hire any accountant that will do the same job, only better, usually at a fraction of the costs.

Avoid the ripoff!