Less than three months before she died after a two-year battle with cancer, Fort Lauderdale attorney Caryl Boies was served with divorce papers from her husband of more than seven years, Broward Sheriff's Capt. Richard Reilly, an action has set the stage for some legal wrangling over part of the considerable Boies estate.
Caryl Boies, who was 48 when she passed away on December 26, was the daughter of attorney David Boies, famed for his work in the 2000 presidential vote recount representing Al Gore and for his role in the Microsoft antitrust case.
While Reilly's assets amount almost exclusively to a BSO pension worth $1.2 million, Boies valued her assets at more than $13 million. That figure doesn't include nearly $20 million sunk into law buildings near the Broward County Courthouse that Caryl Boies acquired in 2006 at the height of the real estate boom because the buildings have lost considerable value.In court filings, the 49-year-old Reilly is asking for attorney's fees and "an unequal distribution of assets wherein the husband receives a greater share." Prior to her death, Boies indicated in court filings that she didn't want to pay for her husband's lawyer or give him a greater share of their marital assets. There is no mention in court filings of a prenuptial agreement.
More details inside.
Among the $13 million in assets listed by Boies was $3.5 million equity in her Rio Vista dream house she shared with Reilly before the split. She also listed nearly $7.3 million in two partnerships and a $182,000 stake in her father's law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner.
Caryl Boies founded the firm's Fort Lauderdale office and, in 2006, purchased law office buildings at 700 and 750 SE Third Ave., 409 SE Eighth St., and 524 S. Andrews Ave. Her real estate holding company, CBSA, paid nearly $20 million for the property at the time, but according to affidavits filed in the divorce proceeding, they are now worth a combined $13 million. Negative equity in the buildings was calculated at more than $800,000. A portion of those buildings was listed as nonmarital in nature.
Boies listed $894,252 in net annual income versus Reilly's take-home $99,335 from his BSO salary. Reilly, a member of Sheriff Al Lamberti's command staff, listed assets of $295,500 in the house he now lives in, $1.2 million in his public pension fund, and a motorcycle valued at $10,000. He totaled his debts at $3,023,000, including $323,000 owed on the house, a $2.3 million mortgage on the Rio Vista home, and a $400,000 construction loan.
"Based on the superior financial ability of the wife and the needs of the husband," wrote his attorney, Kim Marjenhoff, in court papers, "the wife should be obligated to pay the husband's attorney's fees and costs."
In court filings submitted by Boies' attorney Jeffrey Weisman, Boies disputed paying the attorney's fees and allowing Reilly to recieve a "greater share" of the marital assets.
Weisman declined comment when contacted at his law office, and I am requesting comment from Marjenhoff as well. The couple was married on April 6, 2003, and had no children.
