Ending the most expensive – and, likely, the nastiest – divorce trial in Connecticut history, a judge has granted a former luxury travel-agency bigwig sole custody of his four young kids after finding that his boozing, mentally ill wife planted child porn on his computer in a botched bid to smear him.
Still, Nancy Tauck did win $33,333 per month in alimony over the next six years and $20,833 per month over the following two.
And Peter Tauck, 50, was also ordered to fork over $10 million over the next five years to compensate her for her share of their Westport mansion and Lake Placid house.
But Peter Tauck, whose family runs Tauck World Discovery, will retain the majority of more than $40 million in assets that had been at stake.
“This case represents not a victory for either parent but a tragedy for everyone involved,” Judge Holly Abery-Wetsone wrote in a 132-page ruling released yesterday in Middletown Superior Court – after 86 days of trial, 42 volumes of filings and $13 million in legal fees and other costs.
Despite the judge’s remark, the decision came as a blow to Nancy Tauck, whose claims that her ex was a pedophile and child-porn collector collapsed at trial.
Citing forensic evidence, the judge found that Nancy Tauck, 47, “or someone on her behalf planted child pornography on her husband’s broken laptop.”