Wife Pastor Wants Judge To Count Church As An Asset
By Mar Celo on Nov 19, 2007 in US News | | |
The estranged wife of a pastor asked a judge to count his church as an asset in their divorce in New York.
She claims that $50,000 of the couple’s money went into starting the church, and that the church property is partly hers.
She also added that her husband of 31 years used his Brooklyn church as a “personal piggy bank,” setting his own income.
Supreme Court Judge Arthur M. Diamond agreed in a decision published this week to hear arguments on the claim, and he ordered a financial appraisal of the church. .
Lawyers said it is the first time anyone in New York state has tried to treat a religious institution as a marital asset.
Robert Pollack the wife’s lawyer said:
“That church is no different than any other business he might have opened,”
The minister’s attorney Eleanor Gery argued:
“My client can’t own the church,” .
The pastor maintains he is simply a church employee, and the institution’s funds should not be considered his.
