Man sues wife, saying she never loved him
Husband charges fraud in bid to keep his property

March 29, 1993 Byline: Pat Brennan The Orange County Register

Like many men in the midst of divorce, Ronald Askew believes his wife never really loved him.

But Askew, the president of an Anaheim bank, is confronting his belief in an unusual way: He's suing his wife for fraud.

Askew says his wife married him for his money. So now, while the division of their property is pending in divorce court, Ronald Askew will enter another courtroom today and ask a jury to award him damages for fraud and misrepresentation.

"She used me and deceived me," he said. "She induced me into marrying her for her own personal gain, and to transfer personal property into her name."

Bonette Askew, her eyes sometimes clouding with tears, says she still loves the man she married 16 years ago. But she contends that Ronald Askew is no longer that man. She says he's become a stranger.

"Basically, he's trying to destroy me," she said. "He is so powerful and so manipulative."

A 1977 wedding picture shows happy newlyweds. They proceeded to raise two children and build a life together, first in Long Beach and then in Orange County.

Meanwhile, Ronald Askew rose steadily through the ranks of bankers. President of Coast Bank for three years in the early 1980s, he served as vice president of Imperial Bank from 1985 to 1990.

In 1990, he became president of Pacific Inland Bank in Anaheim, attracting notice in the business community for his relentless but effective style. Askew cut costs, trimmed the staff and reconfigured the bank's operations, and the money-losing bank became profitable in its first year with him at the helm.

His efforts generated not only notice, but a rising income: In 1991 he was paid a salary of $302,035, with 28,000 shares of bank stock that he owns currently valued at close to $154,000.

But while things got better at work for her husband, Bonette Askew says the couple's home life deteriorated.

She alleges that the more successful her husband became, the less he trusted her. She says he stopped sharing financial information: He didn't tell her about some bank accounts, stocks and bonds. Eventually, she said, she felt imprisoned in the narrow confines of her life, completely under the control and direction of her husband.

"I felt very much like one of his employees," she said.

Ronald Askew denies the allegations, and says he was always up front with his wife about financial matters.

The two paid a visit to Bonette Askew's therapist in March 1991, at her request, Ronald Askew says. And that event may prove critical to Ronald Askew's fraud case: He says she revealed during the visit that she never really loved him, though she married him anyway. Ronald Askew and his attorney, Steven C. Smith, say they have statements from Bonette Askew's deposition to prove it.

Bonette Askew, however, denies making any such statement. She laughs at her husband's allegation that she married him for money.

"I paid for the wedding," she said.

The only issue unresolved in the couple's divorce is property division, Bonette Askew said. She currently receives $3,600 a month in support from her husband.

Her attorney, Richard W. Millar Jr., said he believes Ronald Askew's suit is an attempt to make an end run around California's no-fault divorce laws.

Unlike the residents of many states, Californians don't have to prove wrongdoing on the part of a spouse, adultery or physical abuse, for example, to obtain a divorce. But the state's divorce laws also require all property to be split evenly.

Ronald Askew feels that his wife obtained the right to half his property by making false promises, Smith said. Smith says Ronald Askew is worried about four pieces of real estate in both his and Bonette Askew's name. He says he would not have agreed to share the property if he had known his wife's true feelings.

"All I want is the property that I owned prior to my marriage restored back to that state so that I can use it for the benefit of my children," Ronald Askew said.

But the state's divorce laws offer no way for him to achieve that. So he took the matter out of the realm of family law, and sued her for fraud.

"The issue of fraud is no different in this case than in any other case," Smith said. "It's just a question of who does the jury believe."

Bonette Askew said she just wants to put the matter behind her. She thinks Ronald Askew's fraud suit is a product of an obsession with winning.

"It's a divorce that's turned ugly," she said. "What I'd like to see happen is just for it to go away."