Another Beatty Christmas

It’s been nearly 14 years now since H. Beatty Chadwick was first acquainted with the inside of a prison cell. Chadwick, a rich lawyer in PA, was jailed back in the ’90s for that most serious of crimes: contempt of court.

This wasn’t your run-of-the-mill contempt either, where he told a judge to stuff it. No, Chadwick is in jail for violating a civil court’s order of alimony. So what happened? From this 2005 ABC Primetime piece:

At the very first divorce hearing to set alimony, Bobbie said Beatty told the court he had some bad news. He had given a real estate venture $5,000 and agreed that they could come to him for additional funds — up to $2.75 million if they got in trouble.

It was at the time of the divorce that he says the company came to him demanding that $2.75 million — a figure equivalent to the family fortune.

The judge didn’t believe him and had him jailed for contempt. Since then, he’s been in jail. His only hope for release is forking over the money, if he has it. Back in 2005, it seemed as though he was beginning to co-operate:

So the judge was able to hire forensic accountants to try and track down the money. They should make their report soon — and at that point the judge could decide to set him free.

Two days ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a follow up story:

Four years ago, both parties decided to have a retired Delaware County judge, A. Leo Sereni, look for the money. After 15 months using two forensic accounting firms, Sereni’s search came up blank.

He recommended that the court release Chadwick.

“I can’t find it,” said Sereni, who now lives in Florida. “Mr. Momjian, he’s spent 10 years, he can’t find it. It is plausible that he’s hiding the money, and it is also possible that in his attempt to hide the money, he got fleeced himself.”

Sereni added that the point of holding Chadwick was to compel him to produce the money: “The purpose of this court order is unworkable and fruitless.”

A panel of three Delaware County judges dismissed Sereni’s findings.

So the very person that both parties hired to find the money was unable to do so. Yet, that report was not believed or implemented.

So what’s holding Chadwick in jail now? It seems like nothing but anger and contempt. If the money’s not there, it’s not there. At some point, shouldn’t there have to be some affirmative evidence that he’s deliberately hiding the money in defiance of the court’s order? If that money doesn’t exist and Chadwick was indeed hoodwinked, then what?

At this rate, Chadwick seems destined to die in prison – without having committed a crime or at the very least without anyone having proven that he’s intentionally defied a court’s order.

Whether he, at some point in the past, had actually hidden the money shouldn’t be relevant anymore. He’s been adequately punished for that. When a judge, hired by both parties, engaged two forensic accounting firms to locate the money and couldn’t, it should be pretty obvious that he doesn’t have it (either that or he’s the best launderer in history). The burden needs to shift, at that point, to someone else to prove that he does have the money. Or let him go.