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Comment by hn_throwaway_99 | Hacker News Reader

Question for folks with knowledge of the process. Government is also arguing for Holmes to pay $800 million in restitution. Obviously she doesn't have that kind of money (neither even does her heir husband), so people she defrauded are never going to see that.

But what happens to her in that case? If the court does sign off on a restitution penalty, is it the equivalent of a creditor's judgment against her? I believe acts of fraud can't be discharged in bankruptcy, so is this judgment something that would hang over her forever? Could the defrauded parties garnish her wages?

Just curious as to how the logistics of "unpayable restitution penalties" play out in the real world.

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Generally you just have your wages garnished for as long as you have an income. This would include Social Security. If, somehow, you came into significant funds again you could probably negotiate a one time payment to satisfy the judgment. That seems highly unlikely in her case though.

Her husband is quite rich.

Does debt pass to spouses in the US?

Generally, no, especially debt that occurred before the marriage.

That said, California is a community property state, which means that income and debts that are incurred during the marriage are considered the joint property of both spouses. Again though, Holmes debt and her husband's wealth were acquired before their marriage, so in that case it's easy to keep these separate.

> Holmes debt

Is only being incurred now, at the verdict.

> husband's wealth

Acquired before marriage, and would have to have been mind bogglingly stupid, knowing the risk of a liability finding, not to protect that with a prenuptial.

> Is only being incurred now, at the verdict.

IANAL but that's generally not how it works. The timing of when the debt was incurred here would be considered when the conduct occurred that resulted in the verdict.

> not to protect that with a prenuptial

Would probably want a prenup for other reasons, but wouldn't be necessary here. Just need to ensure his pre-marriage assets weren't commingled with community property during the marriage.

Is the fact that he married and had a child with Holmes evidence that he is in fact "mind bogglingly stupid"?

if her husband is a beneficiary of a trust (i.e. as I'd assume many heirs are). would any future disbursements (if they exist, there might be none) be considered 50% hers and hence have to the settlement?

No, that's separate property. That's his as long as trust funds are not commingled with community funds.

I'm going to guess no, given that this has all been coming down the pipe since before they got married - and I'm fairly certain no-one is foolish enough to do something like that under those circumstances.

Also, I can't imagine his family would have jumped for joy over it either without consulting several lawyers ahead of time.

My understanding is that the date of sentencing/verdict is the date of record, since until that point you have not been found guilty/liable.

I guarantee there's a prenup.

Surely there must be. It makes no sense otherwise - this outcome has been widely predicted for a loooong time.

It's not that debt goes from one spouse to the other.

When you marry someone you become some sort of combined entity where assets/liabilities now belong to the husband-and-wife-estate figure and not by any of them individually (obv. disregarding the effects of prenups and similar clauses).

That's not the case in any state for assets and liabilities acquired before the marriage, including community property states.

What fraction of your wages get taken?

From the Department of Labor information notice regarding wage garnishment:

"Title III also protects individuals by limiting the amount of earnings that may be garnished in any workweek or pay period to the lesser of 25 percent of disposable earnings or the amount by which disposable earnings are greater than 30 times the Federal minimum hourly wage prescribed by Section 6(a) (1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. This limit applies regardless of how many garnishment orders an employer receives. The Federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour."

It also states that if state limits are smaller than the state limits apply.

I've heard it is 5 years but I have no good source on that. Perhaps it depends on each particular case?

My understanding is that OJ Simpson moved to avoid the liability payments around the judgement against him (he was never found criminally liable, but a civil suit did). So apparently it is as easy as just moving from state to the next.

I believe that was part of it, but he also had assets in ERISA-qualified retirement accounts that could not be seized to satisfy the civil judgement: https://mwpatton.com/asset-protection-articles/oj-simpson-te...

That didn't work, since he wrote the "if I did it" book much later and had had to give all the proceeds to the victim's family.

He didn't write that. From what I understand, the corporation just paid him to say he wrote it. He never actually had the rights to the book, because you can't hold copyright on something just by saying you wrote it.

A bankruptcy judge later transferred the rights from the publisher to the Goldman family. Why I have no idea. But it isn't like it was "taken" from Mr. Simpson or he "had to give" the proceeds. He got his money from the publisher and later a bankruptcy judge decided the publisher could be parted with their income stream.

>He never actually had the rights to the book, because you can't hold copyright on something just by saying you wrote it.

Obviously you can, if you negotiate it with the ghostwriter - who would just be your employee anyway or even be a team of writers, so all the copyrights can remain with you - same way Marvel has the copyright for stuff people wrote for them.

So you think the publisher assigned copyright to a guy with a huge liability settlement against him just so he could immediately assign it back to them?

Rather than the obvious "here sign this form that says we can publish a book about this and put your name on it"?

I'm saying that the book could be his, or his agent's, initiative, not the publisher, and he might have even shopped around for publishers.

Except the facts are well known. The ghost writer who was commissioned by the publisher has even talked about writing the book.

It did work but the GP is only sort of correct. OJ didn’t move to Florida to avoid repaying the debt, he did it to avoid losing his house. In Florida plaintiffs can’t seize a defendant’s primary residence or force its sale to pay a judgement.

Florida has a homestead exemption, so it’s standard practice for fallen rich people to buy a home in Florida and then reverse mortgage it or do something similar for income.

Didn't know that, some things make a lot more sense now such as Citadel's Ken Griffin buying a $120M mansion in Florida and Trump buying Maralago.

Florida's exemption is one of the nicest in the country:

>Florida has one of the most generous homestead exemptions found in any state. Under the Florida exemption system, homeowners may exempt an unlimited amount of value in their home or other property covered by the homestead exemption. However, the property cannot be larger than half an acre in a municipality or 160 acres elsewhere.

Texas has one similar:

>You can protect an unlimited amount of equity in your principal residence. It applies to properties on 10 acres or less in a city, town, or village or 100 acres or less in the country (families can double this to 200 acres).

If you are "high value" and potentially at risk of a lawsuit, it is worth considering relocating to a state with favorable bankruptcy laws.

I think ken's mansion in florida has more to do with the company's move from chicago to miami after people kept getting mugged in chicago.

that and to cover for his failures in politics

And can they go after her husband's money?

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