Divorce Drama Reveals Phil Ivey made $920,000 a Month from Tiltware
In November 2011, Luciaetta Ivey filed a petition with the Nevada Supreme Court after she discovered her husband, poker pro Phil Ivey, had contributed $5,000 to the campaign of Family Court Judge Bill Gonzalez, the judge assigned to their 2009 divorce case.
Phil Ivey answered that petition with a response filed in December, laying out details surrounding the divorce settlement. Now, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Ivey’s wife is unhappy with the settlement.
In a new document filed with the Nevada Supreme Court on Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, Luciaetta Ivey "has attempted only to secure information to confirm that she received a fair settlement."
Part of that information was for Phil Ivey to produce documents to the court showing his income from Tiltware, a company of the online poker site Full Tilt Poker, had ceased.
According to those documents, he received approximately $920,000 a month "from his passive interest in the company which was indisputably acquired during the marriage.”
Married in Las Vegas on May 19, 2002, the Iveys' divorce turned bitter after Luciaetta Ivey discovered her ex-husband’s campaign contribution, inspiring her to seek Gonzalez’s disqualification from the sealed divorce case, a request that was denied by Chief District Judge Jennifer Togliatti.
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Luciaetta Ivey then took the matter to the Supreme Court, who ruled that she had raised issues of "arguable merit” and gave her ex-husband 30 days to respond.
"At the time Phil made his campaign contribution, Judge Gonzalez did have jurisdiction over this matter even though the case was 'closed,' '' Luciaetta Ivey’s lawyer, Bruce Shapiro, wrote in the reply. "Phil can make the claim over and over again, but the case was far from over when he made his donation.”
He went on to say: "There can be no doubt that when a family court litigant makes a substantial contribution to a family court judge and then appears in front of that judge only months later, that it is unseemly and raises at least the appearance of impropriety."
According to court documents, Luciaetta Ivey received about $180,000 a month as taxable alimony from her husband’s Tiltware payment, "while Phil enjoyed the remaining approximately $740,000.” Per the agreement, those payments, which Luciaetta Ivey had received from January 2010 until April 2011, stopped when Phil Ivey ceased receiving them from Tiltware after Black Friday.
In Phil Ivey’s response, he claimed his ex-wife “received a purse collection worth more than $1.2 million, jewelry valued at more than $1 million and $180,000 a month in alimony as part of the divorce settlement, while he accepted more than $170,000 in credit card debt and more than $15.1 million "in gambling and other debt."
Luciaetta Ivey admits that the settlement awarded her the jewelry, "but Phil ignores that his own jewelry is awarded to him with no assessed value."
In addition, she believes the settlement was unfair considering she “had no idea then and has no idea now where Phil's money came from or where it went.”
Luciaetta Ivey, who now resides in Florida, has filed a federal lawsuit in Las Vegas according to the LVRJ.
The lawsuit names her ex-husband and his attorney, David Chesnoff, accusing each of “conspiring to deprive her of her equal share of the community property acquired during the marriage.”
PR & Media Manager for PokerNews, Podcast host & 2013 WSOP Bracelet Winner.
