Forensics in Divorce

As the court-appointed neutral expert in a marriage of approximately 10 years, Doeren Mayhew was tasked with providing business valuation and marital dissolution consulting services for a $3 million estate. The husband held an interest in four companies with collective revenues of a couple million dollars per year. The companies were comprised of a real estate holding company, a company in the building maintenance services industry and two start-up businesses.

Marital dissolution consulting services were provided for the husband and wife, which included business valuations of all four entities, the preparation of a marital estate summary and preparation of an income analysis for purposes of determining spousal support and child support. Doeren Mayhew additionally performed a forensic analysis, including the review of:

• Personal and corporate bank account statements
• Cancelled checks
• Wire transfers
• Contractor payments
• QuickBooks files
• Payments to friends and family members
• False invoices
• Phony expenses categorized as “management fees”

By tracing funds from the above sources, Doeren Mayhew found checks payable to contractors were recorded in QuickBooks under different names that did not match detail in the bank statements.  Additionally, there appeared to be collusion between the husband and a friend in order to submit fraudulent invoices for reimbursement. A portion of the funds received by the friend were then also transferred overseas. In total, the husband dissipated almost $700,000 to accounts overseas.

In addition to forensic services, our professionals attended mediation and arbitration, and ultimately assisted the parties in reaching a settlement and avoiding trial.