A Cook County family court judge has cut in half the amount of money needed for a River Forest businessman to be released from jail to satisfy a previous order to begin paying off $1.6 million in legal bills compiled during a contentious divorce.
During a Jan. 5 Zoom hearing, Cook County Circuit Judge Abbey Romanek said Frank “Marty” Paris could be released if he takes out a loan for $150,000, which is something he said he could do during a hearing last month before Romanek. The judge repeatedly said the money required to release Paris will not go toward attorney fees.
Last month, Romanek said she would give Paris a “Christmas present” of release from Cook County Jail if he could come up with $300,000 in cash and agree to be on electronic home monitoring until he manages to pay the rest of the money to satisfy her previous orders while Paris recently filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy case moves forward.
Marty Paris
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“Mr. Paris has complied with the order as much as he can,” attorney Glenn Udell told Romanek during the Jan. 5 hearing. “He can’t write a check … because he is in bankruptcy.
“Mr. Paris doesn’t have the legal ability to pay anything to anybody.”
Paris was jailed Dec. 8 after being arrested on a civil warrant known as a writ of body attachment issued by Romanek, who ruled Paris again was in contempt of court for not fulfilling prior orders issued by that judge and others amid the divorce proceedings. Paris never has been formally charged with any crime.
To secure his release, Romanek last month ordered Paris to "purge" the contempt order by paying a $500,000 cash bond; signing over large amounts of property to his ex-wife, Kerry Paris; and secure a $2.5 million life insurance policy, to be paid entirely to his ex-wife upon his death.
“Mr. Paris simply doesn’t have the ability to come up with the monetary portion of the purge,” Paris’ bankruptcy attorney Scott Clar told Romanek. “All of the non-monetary aspects have been complied with.”
Udell asked Romanek to grant his motion to release Paris, saying “he’s done everything he can do to purge.”
She didn’t do that, but she did again lower the amount needed for bond.
“Mr. Paris said he could come up with $150,000 to go toward the purge,” she said Jan. 5. “He said he could borrow that money. I’ll reduce the amount to $150,000.”
She also scheduled another hearing in the case for Jan. 19.
On Jan. 3, federal Bankruptcy Judge David Cleary took under advisement competing motions from Paris, his ex-wife and a phalanx of lawyers over the questions of which assets may belong under federal bankruptcy protection, and whether that protection should produce Marty Paris' release from what he has called an illegal "debtor's prison," being used by lawyers to squeeze him for money.
The current incarceration marks the second time a Cook County judge has ordered Paris jailed during the divorce proceedings that began in 2016. The couple had married in 2002 and have seven children, according to court documents.
Paris, founder and president of Sedgwick Development in Chicago, had been jailed for five days in 2017 at the order of Cook County Judge Karen Bowes, allegedly for failure to comply with orders from that judge to set aside $750,000 to pay his then-wife's legal bills.
Throughout the process, Paris has argued the nature of his business mean that seemingly tens of millions of dollars in revenue that appear on balance sheets and income statements don't actually equate to money in his bank accounts. Rather, Paris has argued those revenue figures represent "phantom income" that merely passes through his business to lenders who help to finance his company's residential building projects in Chicago and nearby suburbs.
However, judges consistently have sided with his ex-wife in finding that they believe Paris has a net worth of more than $20 million, and should be able to afford to pay off court-ordered judgments, including thousands of dollars each month in alimony and child support plus all living expenses for the homes held by his ex-wife, tens of thousands of dollars annually for his children's "activities," and millions in legal bills for attorneys who represented him and his ex-wife.
Lawyers who have backed Paris' incarceration over the unpaid bills include attorneys from the firms of Lake Toback DiDomenico and Hurst Robin Kay & Allen, who have represented Paris; and attorneys from the firms of Cronin & Co. and Angelini Ori & Abate, who have represented Kerry Paris in the proceedings.
Among others who would receive a cut of proceeds is believed to be attorney Sean Crotty, of the firm of Crotty & Schiltz.
According to court documents, Crotty purportedly has co-habitated with Kerry Paris during the Paris divorce proceedings, and the two have been romantically involved. Also, according to court documents, Crotty also has recently completed divorce proceedings.
Former Cook County Judge Tim Murphy formally dissolved the Paris' marriage in December 2022. According to court documents, Paris paid $500,000 in family support since last December. However, he has persistently told the court that he cannot pay the additional sums, asserting he doesn't have the money available.
In response, attorneys for Kerry Paris have argued Marty has the ability to sell off the real estate held by various corporate entities they believe are under his control to satisfy the court's orders.
Marty Paris has responded by asserting this represented an overly-simplistic appraisal of his business dealings and structure, claiming persistently that he cannot access the money that is locked up in the corporate entities.
Marty Paris' assertions, however, have proven unpersuasive to Judge Romanek and others, leading to multiple findings of civil contempt against Paris and ultimately the order for his indefinite incarceration, pending his ability to "purge" the contempt.
Shortly before his jailing, Marty Paris filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in Chicago federal court. As part of that filing, Paris asked a federal bankruptcy judge to use the protection from debt collections afforded to bankruptcy filers to secure his release from jail while the bankruptcy proceedings move forward.
Paris and his lawyers pointed to a 2020 decision from U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis, who ruled "that civil contempt is not a basis for continued incarceration of the Debtor in a state jail, and such an incarceration did not come within the 'police and regulatory power' exception to the automatic stay."
Kerry Paris and her attorneys have refused to agree to Marty Paris' release from jail, and responded with a motion of their own, asking the bankruptcy judge to agree that the automatic stay provisions don't apply to Judge Romanek's orders, and that Paris should remain in jail until he pays.
They say the bankruptcy filing was a "textbook bad faith" filing entirely to thwart state court contempt proceedings.
Lawyers signing the petition seeking to keep Marty Paris in jail include attorneys Steven R. Jakubowski and Carolina Y. Sales, of the firm of Robbins DiMonte; Thomas C. Cronin, of Cronin & Co.; and Sean Crotty and Elizabeth Richert, of Crotty & Schiltz, all of Chicago.
Udell previously filed an emergency motion asking Romanek to release Paris from jail amid the bankruptcy proceedings. In that motion, Udell asserted Paris had fulfilled many of the directives in the judge's contempt order, including signing over the property to Kerry Paris and submitting a life insurance applicaton.
During the hearing before Romanek last month, Udell told the judge Paris cannot complete the insurance application process while in jail. And Udell again told the court Paris cannot pay $500,000, saying he does not have that amount of cash in any account. Even if he did, Udell said, all of his assets are under the control of the bankruptcy trustee, and no large sums can be paid without the approval of the court.