I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab.

A little over a year ago, I had Brandee Glenville, of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, on the show to talk about splitting up relationships and splitting up assets. Brandee was married to an actor who had an affair with another married actor, but I'm not here for the gossip. I'm here to talk financial infidelity. The definition of financial infidelity is simple. It happens when one spouse lies to another spouse about money in a significant and/or harmful way. This can be particularly nasty and damaging in a divorce when couples need to look at each that are financially naked, so to speak, to divvy up assets. When one person suspects their spouse of financial infidelity during the divorce process, they might call up a forensic accountant, an accountant who specializes in following money trails that have been intentionally obscured. Today, you're going to be hearing from a forensic accountant, Sheryl Hines, to talk about what she actually does, the red flags that could mean financial infidelity, and ways spouses hide assets from the other during a separation. I know what you might be thinking, any type of accountant, even if it's a forensic accountant, is boring. Sheryl is certainly not that.

She even told me about some of the wildest cases she's worked on, and they are wild, which you'll hear about later. But first, I want to stick with Brandy. Brandy alleges that there was not just romantic infidelity, but financial infidelity that happened throughout the divorce process. Here she is.

So my divorce was extremely public, and I still worry. All of our bills went to another address. So even if I wanted to, and at a point, I wanted to check his phone bill, I couldn't. And for some reason, I was okay with it. I I just was madly, blindly in love.

Do you feel like that's financial infidelity?

Yes, absolutely. It's wrong on so many levels, and it's almost like it's preconceived. They know that at a point, they may be getting out and they're protecting themselves. And that, to me, that's worse than a prenup, honestly. I would rather have a prenup and know what I get at the end of it than having someone always planning for when it's over. That hurts. And then when I left the situation, I had to ask my dad to cosign on a car for me at 36 years old. I was so embarrassed. I couldn't even lease a house without my parents cosigning. And it was horrible and embarrassing. And at that moment, I'm like, I am working on my credit. I went and saw a credit counselor, and I started doing everything I was supposed to do to get my credit better. Right now, I have great credit, but it's still very expensive to live here, and it's still a struggle. I got alimony for four years because we were married for eight. And it was... It sucked, actually, because if he was working, I would get it based on what he was making. And for a lot of the four years, he wasn't working, so I wouldn't get anything for my alimony.

Child support was different. It was always varying. Never great. And even now, when he told me he I was taking, cutting it in half, I was like, All right. I got this. But it's also just like, Ladies out there, no, they will not take care of you forever. Even if you are the mother of their children, you have to take care of yourself.

Would you tell other women to get a prenup or a postnup? Do you advocate for those?

I do. I mean, I know a lot of women that they were upset about it. And then I told them my story. I said, Listen, I didn't have one, and everyone thought I was going to be great. And I left with nothing, no credit, no money. We were living out of my range over the back of my car for couch-surfing on my friend's couches, me and two little babies. I can't even tell you. I'll cry about it if I think about it. But what was the question? What was the question again?

There's an actual term for this, divorce planning. To explain, you're going to hear from Sheryl Hines, a forensic accountant. Here she is.

When I hear divorce I think about somebody whose marriage has been on the rocks for multiple years, and you have no idea why these people are staying together. Well, it could be that one person is trying to restructure their finances so that when they do file for divorce, typically that would be like a second or a third marriage. Not so often on the first one, unless they have a family history where they've seen divorce over and over and over. But they structure their finances and financial planning and everything else so that the picture they paint when they ultimately do file or when the other spouse files is not a favorable one. That way they get to keep whatever it is that they're trying to hide. There's also another couple of terms that are related to divorce planning I'm going to throw at you. One is Sudden Income Deficiency, SIDs, and the other one is SADs, Sudden Asset Deficiency Syndrome. They go with it. There's probably no end, though, to the possibilities for divorce planning if somebody really wants to hide it. There are ways to counteract it, which in my case, I try to find out when things started going bad in the marriage.

I assume at that point that one of the spouses, or possibly both, started moving assets around.

Of course, I had to ask, WTF is Sudden Asset Deficiency Syndrome. It sounds like something I would definitely take a sick day from. There's another word, though, for this genre of phenomenon called intentional impoverishment that you might recognize from Brandy's story. Here's Sheryl's description.

Intentional impoverishment is something that you're going to see, and it really is a shame when it comes up, where one of the parties is so bitter for the other that they would rather intentionally take some action or inaction that's going to result in them having less income than they normally would have available just because they don't want to share it. It's really a shame when you see it. Fortunately for me, I don't have to do anything when I do see it other than flag it to the attorney and say, Hey, you may want to find out what's happening here. Possibly bring in a vocational expert. Let them determine what this fellow or lady's income really should be based on their level of experience and education and so forth.

In cases of intentional impoverishment, there is some recourse for the spouse who's trying to prove the financial hardship is by design. In that scenario, a judge could impute income to the spouse who is making that case, meaning that spouse would get money that is equal to what they could have earned if the other spouse hadn't chosen to not act to realize potential income, meaning that spouse could get money that is equal to what they could have earned if the other spouse hadn't chosen to not act to realize potential income. Brandy did actually hire a forensic accountant through her process, but it didn't provide the answer she was looking for.

So I thought it was going to It was really great for me not to have a prenup. Unfortunately, when I didn't know about our finances, then we were pretty much mortgaged to- Yeah, extreme. So there was nothing to even get, which I, of course, I didn't know. So So I thought, everyone's like, You're so lucky. I'm like, What? I'm going to get part of his debt? Great.

You, unfortunately, get debt, too. You can, yes.

Did you take on any of that?

We did not. We had an apartment building I didn't even know about that we sold, and it covered the divorce expenses and lots of secrets, lots of secrets.

Tell me more about those secrets.

Did you find out through the divorce proceedings?

Yes. So I hired a forensic accountant, which was very expensive because I really thought there was a lot of money. I did. I'm like, he's hiding it. We live this lifestyle. We have this house. We have these cars. I'm driving my Range Rover everywhere and living the life. There's no way we don't have any money. And $12,000 later, we don't have any money, and I still have to pay the forensic accountant.

Beyond getting a forensic accountant, there are other ways you can accomplish what Randy was trying to do, which was to disprove low ball estimates of income and networth. One of Sheryl's favorites is to look at other places spouses have had to talk up their income that have nothing to do with the divorce. Here's an example.

This is great. Like Let me say, for example, loan application. I'm not trying to rip this out of the headlines. Absolutely not. This is a... One of my favorite tools is the loan application. Because in that case, you're You're looking for how much income are you telling the bank that you make? What's it substantiated by? For the business owner, what are you saying the business is worth? I've had cases forever where they're doing what's called puffing, where you're inflating the numbers because you want to get that good loan that you can't really afford. I've also had cases where for some reason, they're diminishing what and their networth is on a loan application. Still never figured out why, but I have seen that. So that's probably the best example of third-party documentation.

Hold on to your wallet. Moneyrehab will be right back.

Do you ever get FOMO, fear of missing out? Well, do you ever get FOMO-tupita, fear of missing out on the perfect hire? If so, I have the antidote. It's LinkedIn jobs. Linkedin jobs helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere or else.

Even those who aren't actively searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role.

In any given month, over 70 % of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites, and that adds up to a serious squad of awesome candidates. Linkedin has over a billion professionals on the platform, and these candidates are super qualified, so much so that 86 % of small businesses get a qualified candidate within just 24 hours.

I work with LinkedIn jobs for all of my dream team needs, so they're hooking up money rehabbers at linkedin.

Com/linkedin. Mnn. Go there and you can post your job for free. That's linkedin. Com/mnen, as in Money News Network.

To post your job for free.

Terms and conditions apply.

And now for some more money rehab.

Listening to Brandee describe her situation and then hearing the most common red flag Sheryl sees in her work was really eerie.

For me, the big one is always when I hear from somebody that you don't need to worry about that, or even better yet, it's complicated. It'll be too hard to explain to you, Let me just take care of it. So why are you not willing to share with me something that may affect both of us? If the answer seems complicated and it doesn't inherently feel like it should be complicated, it's because there's a layer there that they're inserting as a barrier, and the barrier shouldn't be there.

I'd never saved money before. I had modeled, and basically what I made, I spent. And then I met my ex-husband, and I had a credit card with my name on it, and I put everything on that credit card, and I trusted him. I was madly in love, and I never questioned anything. And I signed everything that was put in front of me. And I think that happens to a lot of trusting wives and partners. And I came out of the divorce with nothing.

What papers did you sign?

I wish I knew. No, I signed my name off of our house right before he filed for a divorce, six months prior. It was Christmas. He's putting all these things in front of me. And I trusted him. And I think that happens in the Theresa Judai situation and a lot of these things that we're seeing play out in the media. I think a lot of times, women can be naive because we have love goggles on and trust goggles on. Not that we're stupid by any means, but we're fooled by love.

It simultaneously breaks my heart and boils my blood to see people take advantage of the trust their partners have in them. But of course, trust isn't inherently bad. It's the foundation of any healthy relationship. But you do need the tools to be able to fact check the information you've been given. And if something isn't feeling right, you need to know where to look to validate or override that feeling. Because in some relationships, financial infidelity is premeditated, right? It's called divorce planning. That means there will be money moves that happen pre-divorce. If alarm bells are ringing, here are some things to look out for.

Isn't there a change in how the financial assets are being accumulated? Did we suddenly go from having direct deposits to now we're receiving checks? Another fan favorite, because it's really not that creative, but people think it is, is they're going to switch from either having minimal federal tax withholding to maximizing the federal tax withholding, thinking that they're going to file a separate return from their soon-to-be ex, and they're going to get to hide all that money and keep that tax refund for themselves. Nope, not going to happen. We just have to look at what's changed. He's bringing home less money. Let's look at a pace, though. Let's see if maybe he's putting more into a 401(k). It could be anything.

I mentioned that Sheryl told me some of her wildest stories from her years as a forensic accountant. Here was one that blew my mind.

I had a business owner who sold his business to his CPA. We knew the transaction was bogus. Spouse knew it was bogus. All the paperwork lined up and we couldn't prove it. It was really super frustrating. So, Carmen caught up him, though, because what happened was after the divorce was settled, et cetera, the business owner went back to his CPA and said, Hey, I'm going to give you back your check and let me have my business back. The accountant got a really bad case of amnesia and said, What? No, that was a real transaction. So business owner and his spouse got back together, ultimately over this, and they sued him, and they did eventually get their business back.

Wow. Karma, baby. And it actually got crazier.

I've got three cases that were pretty epic. I hired a hitman to kill his wife. Oh, my God. Hitman was a cop, as it always is. When he did that, then she files for divorce, blah, blah, blah, blah, the forensic accountant, that's me, who's coming up with all the crazy, all the stuff that she's going to be able to take away from him if this divorce goes through. Dude, you're in jail for 25 years. You can wave a goodbye, right? And he was actually caught a second time for soliciting the hitman from jail. So the craziest part of that is he wanted proof that the attorney was dead because he wanted the hitman to bring him the attorney's... What's the tactical word? Gonads. Excuse me? Gonads. He's nuts.

I don't think I've I've never been specialized on this show. And the craziest- This one is a former retired pro-athlete.

A former pro-athlete, now retired. Divorcing his wife in favor of the much younger model, starts three businesses, each of which is a fraud built upon the last one. All of his frauds were uncovered, and it got to the point where we chased him out of the country. At the time he was chased out of the country, he had already committed bankruptcy fraud, homeowners insurance fraud, workers' comp insurance fraud. What else did he do? A couple of instances of bank fraud, a little bit of wire fraud in there.

For good measure.

Yeah, why not? While he was... I mean, this guy was the typical stereotypical spousal abuser. Emotionally, he abused his kids, promised the one kid, You'll get a car when this divorce is over. Stay with me, hang in there. As soon as This poor kid had to testify at one of the hearings, and he said, You know what? Screw you. You're not getting a car. It gets even worse, though. The car is a thing, right? He's now wanted on federal charges. This dude was also in America's Most Wanted. Fleece the country. No one knows where to find him. The girl, his daughter, who had the car taken away from her, the car she never had that she would now not get. One of her best friends was on vacation in a foreign country and actually saw him on a train. Like, literally sitting in that same passenger car of the train that she was. She texted her friend real quick. She took a surptitious picture of the dude, sent it and said, I think your dad's here. People find him, and he goes on the run. The story does not have a good ending. He wound up wrapping his car around the pole.

Oh, my God.

High speed, one car accident, and he died instantly. The depth of Deception that this guy went to, though, neither his criminal attorney nor his divorce attorney were willing to believe it was him until they saw the dental records.

Was this a famous guy, pro-athlet? Do we know who this is?

Probably. From what I've said, if you really wanted to, you could figure out who it was. But I'm not dropping names regardless of how long ago it was. I know.

And I'm not pushing because- That's okay. You scare me, Sheryl. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to scare you. This isn't a Who Did I Marry rerun. Financial infidelity does not happen in every relationship, but it does happen. And no matter what, it's always smart to have your own back. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. Forensic accountants, of course, are not free. William Kirby law puts the cost of a forensic accountant at around 300 to 500 bucks an hour, and on average, over $3,000 for a divorce case. Unlike some other types of lawyering, where a person who loses the case has to pay for everyone's legal fees. The person who foots the bill for a forensic accountant is simply the person who wants to hire them. However, you can stipulate in a prenup the terms of payment around a forensic accountant if you do want to adopt a clause that says something like, Whoever in the relationship does some sketchy financial shit, they have to pay for the forensic accountant. You'll need to translate that into legalese, but you get the gist.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan boy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your moneyquestions, moneyrehab@moneynewsnetwork. Com, to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram @moneynews and TikTok @moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.