Paula Rader paying for the crimes of her husband

FTR, when my ex was incarcerated, most of the creditors with whom he had accounts wrote off the debt. I wasn’t responsible for any of that, although I still owed on joint debts, which I then put into my name only. We didn’t have a wrongful-death suit to deal with, though.

That said, I find it hard to understand why Mrs. Rader should be held accountable for her husband’s actions on any sort of moral level.

Robin

I don’t think anyone considers that Rader’s debt to his victims’ families is a joint debt. The question is if any of his share of their jointly owned property should be used to pay off that debt.

I doubt anyone thinks she is liable. Just if her (ex-)husbands actions in transferring all of their joint assets solely to her were legitimate, or an attempt to benefit her unduly. I guess I don’t have an opinion.

Sorry about your ex, if it is appropriate to put it that way.

Ghoulish thought #1 - I wonder if the value of a property would go up if it was formerly owned by the BTK Killer?

Ghoulish thought #2 - Would the victims’ families be entitled to any share of the proceeds of a book Mrs. Rader wrote about “I Married a Murderer”?

Regards,
Shodan

You’re right. She’s committed no crimes, and she’s also suffered because of her husband’s actions. But when the lawsuit was filed, and also when the house was sold, it wasn’t “her” money. It was their money…hers and her husband’s.

Apparently so. The house was appraised at $57,000 and it sold for $90,000. I have the impression that the buyer wanted to help Mrs. Rader. I’ve no idea what her intentions were for the property.

Absolutely not.

In general, I’m confused at how so many people are perceiving this as an action to protect Rader’s assets. He will not have access to the money. It’s not like he put it all in his wife’s name just before he declared bankruptcy. As MsRobyn attests, sometimes the wife does get everything. MsRobyn’s share of virtually nothing was not held against a potential judgement against her ex. I don’t understand the mindset that says it’s OK to take what little Mrs. Rader has in order to punish her ex.

Dennis Rader didn’t get squat because he can’t enjoy it anyway… he’s in prison.

I think that, since the divorce decree probably gives Paula everything anyway, a DA or plaintiff’s attorney would have a tough time arguing fraudulent conveyance. And if the divorce judge made a mistake, that’s a matter for the appellate court to decide.

Robin

I would argue that yes, she has. Quite a bit more. At least the victim’s families can remember them with love and respect. Paula Rader doesn’t even have that. Not only is the man she (presumably) loved lost to her, it turns out he never even exsisted in the first place.

Open a museum? :eek:

I, for one, don’t think it was - that would not make sense, as you point out.

I saw it mostly as an attempt to get as much transferred to her as possible before the victim’s family could. I have no doubt that Rader would rather provide for his ex-wife than for the families of his victims. The question is, is that an appropriate use of his part of their joint property?

Regards,
Shodan

Now you’re just making stuff up to try and win an argument. All those weeping familes must have missed the memo about how good they have it. I’m sure that hearing Rader calmly decribe how he murdered their loved ones will help to ‘remember them with love and respect’.

I’ll have to remember that the next time they show Natalee Holloway’s mom on CNN. I thought she was a victim, thanks to you I realize that the real victim will be the murderer’s (mom/wife/sister/hey, maybe all three [the grief trifecta]), if they ever get around to catching him. Next time they interview her, I’ll be sure to yell at the TV, “At least you can remember her with love and respect!”

Yeah. It’s not like anyone wonders why their loved one is dead but this piece of shit is allowed to live. It’s not like any parent torments themselves about how old their loved one would be on their birthday, or what the grandchildren they’ll never have might have looked like.

Yep, that’s how the world works

I have an equal amount of sympathy for Mrs. Rader as I do for the families of the murder victims. Put yourself in her shoes for a minute, in her children’s shoes.

Matter of fact, the fact that some of these people are willing to attempt to impoverish a shattered woman for a few thousand dollars, well…

You know, in addition to providing for the recompense of victims when possible, the State (in the general sense) has an interest in keeping people off public assistance; in practical terms, that means that you don’t impoverish someone without a damned good reason. As long as we can only speculate on the judge who granted the divorce’s rationale in distributing all the assets to Ms. Rader, we might as well keep that in mind, as well. (Strictly as a matter of opinion, I can’t see any judge in his right mind acting with intent to commit fraud for the benefit of ANYONE named Rader. Judges like to keep their jobs too, you know.)

I do have sympathy for her, not as much as I do for the victim’s family, but I do have sympathy for her. I understand that she is a victim of the BTK murderer as well.

But they are not going after her money. I’m sure that they wan’t everything that HE had liquidated and given to the victims families. The wrinkle here is that he was married and had joint property. She deserves her share, but she wants to keep it all. And you want her to keep it all as well, which tells me you have more sympathy for her than any of the other victims.

None of you have addressed my hypotheticals, because it would be too difficult to defend. Not really all that hypothetical because a version of it happens pretty often. So try on these shoes. Let’s say that Denis Rader wasn’t a serial murder but a drunk driver. He kills a husband in a DUI and leaves a wife in critical condition. He gets convicted for vehicular manslaughter. He isn’t sentenced for life, but considering his age it basically is a life sentence. Meanwhile Mrs Rader has filed for divorce, and the judge seeing as Mr Rader will spend the rest of his life in prison gives all the property to his wife. Now the wife who survived the crash, is she an evil person for going after Denis Raders portions of the community property? Is she trying to impoverish a shattered woman? I can’t believe I am having to argue this point, so maybe you will view it as Mrs. Rader being victimized.

The house was reported as selling at auction for “far above it’s assessed value”. Bidding started at forty thousand dollars, and ended at ninety thousand dollars.

[SUB]BTW, why can’t I get the second page to load on this topic? Mods? Is it just me? [/SUB]

This is a test post to see whether the board will move beyond post #50.

I agree that it had not been working, but it seems to be OK, now.

Confirmed, I got the second page of this topic to load! That was odd, and it was only this topic it was happening on AFAIK. I was able to veiw multiple page threads, just not this one. :confused: Weird “hiccough” maybe?

What the hell, dude? I never said they had it good, or that they had no reason to grieve. Christ, having more sympathy for one person doesn’t mean I don’t have any sympathy for anyone else. Dial down the histrionics for a minute. Yeah, I have a lot of sympathy for the victim’s families. I can’t think of anything worse than to lose a family member to a monster like Denis Rader. Except to learn that a family member was a monster like Denis Rader. Memories aren’t much, but at least they still have theirs. Every second of joy Paula Rader ever had with her husband, every moment of tenderness, or love, or happiness they ever had together has been tainted by the knowledge that underneath it all, he wasn’t even human. I think I could recover from a loved one being murdered. I don’t know that I could ever recover from what’s happened to Paula Rader.

Now, lets talk for a second about some actual figures. There’s less than $100,000 at stake here. For one person, that’s a hell of a lot of money. But the law suit here is going to take that from her and split it up between three families. They’re going to ruin this woman so that they can each get a pittance. That’s fair to you? That’s justice?

Sorry, but I just don’t see it.

Most people would not agree with you.

Just because you ‘imagine’ that you could get over the loss of a loved one, doesn’t mean it goes for everyone. Obviously a few of the families are extremely bitter. They are not able to get over it. They want to see all of his (not necessarily both the Rader’s) assets liquidated and given to the families. They want their restitution. Maybe it’s the step they need to finally feel closure. Will you begrudge them that? My guess is you would tell them to get over it. Apparently Mrs. Rader deserves every opportunity to have closure and move on, but the victim’s families do not.

I don’t think you want to go into the pittance aspect, because if he had only killed one person and that one person’s family wanted his half of that $90,000 sale price, it’s not like you would change your opinion.

Your sole argument seems to be ‘Mrs Rader has it so hard she needs to be protected’. Apparently court ordered restitution is not a good enough reason to take away his share of profits. Why not protect her from other creditors? How long does she get to be “Queen for a Day”. If he had a balance with Citibank of $10,000, and they go after Mrs Rader because all the assets were given to her and she made a nice profit on the sale of what used to be joint property, is it wrong?

I believe in justice, and I believe in being responsible for one’s own actions. Mrs. Rader wasn’t responsible for these crimes, her ex-husband was. But how is it justice to punish an innocent person? It’s not.

Robin

When there is more than one innocent person in the room.

Dennis Rader was co-owner of some assets. Two groups of innocent people have staked legal claim to those assets. I think the right answer is that the assets need to be divvied up between the innocents. Would you be saying the wife gets it all if “all” meant $50 million? The problem here is that there is so little to go around, the wife will wind up in the poorhouse (a claim with no basis, AFAICT) if she loses any of the assets.

HOW it gets divvied is the tough part, everyone is going to wind up with less than they feel they deserve.

Wow, we just keep missing each other.

They are holding HIM responsible. They want HIS assets. HE doesn’t have any assets? Why is that? Oh, HE gave all HIS assets to HER. So they want HIS share of the assets, that should never have been given over to HER.

Let’s try to clarify our positions. Are you saying that it is legally her property now, and should shielded from judgement, or are you saying that she should not be affected at all by her husbands crime? Because I have been assuming you mean the second.

I get the sense that if they were still married and the house was in both their names, you would still be against them taking his share of the profits of the house because it would burden her. Which doesn’t make sense, because we as a society send primary bread winners to jail all the time. Does it affect their families? Yep. Are they being punished for their hubands crime? In the broadest sense of the term ‘punishment’ some could misinterpret it as that, but she is not being punished by the State. I’m sure if there was a way to punish people with no collateral effect on the criminal’s family they would, but we live in a world where people get sent to jail and their families are often left destitute.

What are you advocating? If Mrs. Rader was a SAHM with no marketable skill to get a well paying job, Dennis Rader should not be sent to jail, because we would be ‘punishing’ her?