Marital Fraud Verdict Threatens to Disbar the Bartender

It’s the kind of story you expect to hear from a guy on a bar stool, not a witness stand.

It’s the kind of story a guy tells around closing time, with the piano player singing, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” and with only the regulars still hanging around.

The only oath he takes is, “Scotch rocks, and keep ‘em comin’.”

The only thing he swears to is to keep buying rounds. Not only is he not sworn to tell the truth, everybody sort of assumes he’ll be making up large chunks of the story.

Rusty the bartender is the judge. He’s had years of experience behind the bar, and there’s nothing he hasn’t heard. The jury is a bunch of other losers named Mac with no home to go back to. It’s the most sympathetic court in the world, and no guy has ever been found guilty.

“So, what’d she do to you?” someone at the bar says.

“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you,” the guy says. “But since you asked . . . “

By the time he finishes spinning his tale, there’s not a dry eye in the house. Of course, everybody is plastered, which helps get the sympathy vote. “That’s a dirty rotten shame,” the jury foreman says. “You didn’t deserve that. Case closed!”

Then everybody leaves and forgets the story 10 minutes later.

Like I said, that’s the way guys usually tell their stories about domestic strife--to other guys. In comfortable surroundings, like a bar or the locker room.

But in a public courtroom? Never.

That’s why I’m sure there were mouths agape all over Orange County when people read about Anaheim banker Ronald Askew’s recent days in court.

He told a jury (a real one) that his ex-wife had defrauded him by agreeing to marriage even though she didn’t feel any physical attraction toward him. Not only that, he said, she never felt attracted to him throughout their 11-year marriage. The key to Askew’s case was his contention that his ex-wife, Bonnette, intentionally kept that information from him during the marriage and that he wouldn’t have gotten married had he known it.

Instead of shrugging their shoulders and saying, “Gee, that’s a tough-luck story, but we’ve heard worse,” the jury agreed with him.

Not only that, the jurors also ordered his ex-wife to pay him $242,000, almost all of that coming from joint property she had claimed after their divorce in 1991.

As Norm once said on “Cheers”: “My world doesn’t make sense anymore.”

Sure, your bar buddies would sympathize with a story like that, but a jury of intelligent people? A jury that includes six women?

In essence, the jurors ruled that Bonnette Askew had deceived her husband. One of the jurors said the trial was a matter of “honesty and integrity.”

Marital fraud. Hmm, interesting concept. This must be the first marriage where it has occurred.

A woman loses $240,000 because she told her husband that she was attracted to him, but really wasn’t. A payout like this must sit especially well with the women whose ex-husbands had affair after affair and beat them up at home--but they still can’t get the courts to force their ex-husbands to pay child support.

Jurors said they were swayed by Bonnette Askew’s testimony that she hid her lack of attraction to her husband for more than a decade. Either Ronald Askew is slow on the uptake or Bonnette must be one tremendous actress because Ronald Askew hung in there for 11 years.

Ronald Askew’s lawyers said they don’t think the case sets a precedent, but if they really believe that, they haven’t hung around the same guys I have. I’ve heard a hundred stories of deception crueler than Askew’s, from both men and women, but never felt like awarding the unknowing spouse a quarter-million bucks. If deception within marriage is the new standard for determining post-divorce property settlements, we might as well set up a special session of the Legislature now and start rewriting divorce law.

After the verdict, Bonnette Askew said: “The only reason I did not tell him was because I didn’t want to hurt his male ego.”

I know that isn’t precedent-setting.

Although I have to admit I’m stunned by the verdict, my real concern isn’t for the Ronald Askews of the world. It’s for the saloon business.

As soon as the word gets out that jurors actually award money for stories like this, it’s going to put bartenders out of business.

As for my own sad story . . .

It all began in May of ‘75, when I caught a glimpse of her walking down the hallway in the office . . .

Bartender, a Scotch. Make it a double.

Better yet, forget the Scotch. I’m calling my lawyer.