by:Joe Saunders
This is some ugly stuff ...
As the dean of the Fox News commentary corps, longtime television pundit Bill O’Reilly is used to having disputes aired out in the open.
Whether it’s clashing with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz over alleged favoritism toward likely GOP nominee Donald Trump, or hammering the passionate partisans of Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, O’Reilly routinely goes to rhetorical battle in front of an audience of millions.
But legal papers O’Reilly’s attorneys just filed in Nassau County, New York, don’t represent the kind of argument anyone wants to have played out in public.
According to a court summons publicized by the website Gawker.com, O’Reilly is accusing his ex-wife, Maureen McPhilmy, of engaging in an adulterous affair while the couple were still married.
The summons contains notice that O’Reilly intends to sue McPhilmy for $10 million in damages O’Reilly claims he suffered because of “misrepresentations” McPhilmy made while the two were negotiating a divorce settlement in 2010.
They were divorced in 2011.
The summons — and a later motion to seal the records from the public eye — contain no details, but sketch out in painful legalese what must have been a stormy period for the one-time couple battling over child custody, among other things. That fight continued until March of this year, when McPhilmy won full residential custody of the two teenagers, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.
Here’s how the summons describes the alleged extramarital affair:
“Plaintiff [O’Reilly] alleges that Defendant [McPhilmy] knowingly made false misrepresentations and material omissions of existing fact to Plaintiff upon which Plaintiff justifiably relied to his extreme detriment, for the purpose of inducing Plaintiff to agree to a consensual divorce and to obtain money and real property to finance and existing extra-marital relationship.”
Well, it’s not a country song, but it’s a good bet there were a lot of teary eyes behind those dry words.
There were also a lot of allegations made over the course of the years-long battle, according to Gawker, including that O’Reilly physically assaulted his then-wife in the couple’s home at some point before they were separated. O’Reilly called the charge “100 percent false.”
Gawker also alleged that O’Reilly used his influence as a public figure to have an internal affairs investigation launched into the Nassau County police detective who began dating McPhilmy when she and O’Reilly were separated. (The detective is now McPhilmy’s husband.)
It also reported that O’Reilly stirred up trouble for his ex-wife at her Catholic parish.
It’s ugly stuff, and true or false, Gawker’s approach has a clearly anti-O’Reilly bent. (The website also has legal troubles of its own, considering a huge jury decision against it in March in a case brought by professional wrestler Hulk Hogan.)
But those are exactly the kind of allegations O’Reilly sought to have kept under wraps in a move to seal the records — for the good of the children, his motion argues:
“Plaintiff is a public figure and matters concerning his personal life, marriage, and children, attract media attention, which, upon information and belief, caused the minor children extreme emotional distress.”
Sounds like it’s causing O’Reilly some distress, too.
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