Crazy Divorce
NEW VIDEO! It’s a tale of a CRAZY DIVORCE, complete with a Houston family lawyer we’ve warned you about before in our work trying to stop family injustice. It’s another shocking example of our screwed-up family court system.
Crazy Divorce
“I don’t want anything else in this world other than to be free of him. That is really it. I don’t — there’s nothing else I want in the world. I just want him to leave me alone,” Cheryl Verret said.
Meet Cheryl Verret, and boy does she have a tale of family injustice to share with us.
It’s nuts.
“I am currently embroiled in a three-year contentious divorce that has cost over $700,000 to date,” Cheryl Verret said.
She hasn’t been just screwed by the Harris County court system.
“I’m not angry, I’m terrified,” Cheryl Verret said.
She’s literally trapped, and what’s worse.
“I’ve been looking for you, Dennis,” Wayne Dolcefino said.
Her powerful husband has our old friend Dennis Slate as his divorce lawyer.
“I think he’s getting away with this because he has an attorney who pays a lot of money to different judges,” Cheryl Verret said.
And if Dennis Slate is involved.
You can bet the cash register is ringing.
But Cheryl thought her divorce nightmare was finally over last December.
“I managed to actually get divorced and have a judgment, and then my ex somehow managed to finagle a retrial through a lot of legal maneuvers, and now I am remarried to him,” Cheryl Verret said.
“That’s right, Cheryl got her divorce, only to find out she would now have to fight the same divorce battle all over again, from scratch. How the hell does that happen,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“I’m remarried to the man that I would rather be furthest away from in the entire world,” Cheryl Verret said.
We call it the crazy divorce.
“It’s cost me my freedom,” Cheryl Verret said.
Cheryl Verrett claims she endured decades of abuse at the hands of her husband.
“For financial reasons, I was never able to leave. And for my children, I wasn’t able to leave. And so I was very emotionally manipulated and abused,” Cheryl Verret said.
What kept her from leaving, she says, fear.
“Get out. Get out. Should I call the cops? He’s here,” Cheryl Verret said.
“That man is incredibly scary. He didn’t get physical often, but when he did, it was terrifying,” Cheryl Verret said.
Maybe she had a reason to be afraid, because her husband had already had blood on his hands.
In 1996, Chad Verret was responsible for a deadly boating accident, killing two teenage boys when his ship collided with their fishing boat.
He got the maximum penalty. He was put on two years probation.
Chad was also to blame for another death back in 2005, when one of his horses escaped and collided with a guy’s truck, it killed him.
And with many divorce cases, there is another woman in this story, too. A Venezuelan dancer that Chad allegedly hooked up with in the last year of this marriage to Cheryl. And he didn’t just cheat, he sent the woman thousands of dollars of what Cheryl said is community property, at least some of it, against court orders.
Now Chad is allegedly asking the court to let him pay less in child support. While accused of taking trips with his girlfriend and buying her a new car.
“Tell the court why it was reasonable and necessary for you to loan your girlfriend on January the 5th of 2022 the amount of $8,529.08.”
“I did because I wanted to,” Chad Verret said.
But Chad didn’t want to talk to us.
“Enjoy your day. Produce your production. Do whatever you’re going to do. I don’t consent to using any of my words. And you’ve got the full story from her. So just run along with that. Have a great day,” Chad Verret said.
“Ok, we will,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Chad files for divorce three years ago.
He hired an old friend of ours, Houston family lawyer Dennis Slate.
“I’ve been under constant barrage from this man and his attorney continuously for 3 years. I never know what I’m going to wake up to,” Cheryl Verret said.
You remember Dennis, the Houston attorney, getting quite the wrap for intentionally dragging out family custody cases so he can get bigger slice of the legal pie.
He kind of admits it.
Slate is currently being sued for just that by two different people, both accusing him of malpractice and overbilling.
“I think it was purposeful. He just did not want the case to stop, he made a bunch of lies, he never brought any of my case together. I believe in karma, he’s playing with people’s lives and emotions and nobody could be that cruel,” Arif Rehmatulla said.
Slate is also one of the single biggest donors to family judges’ political campaigns, the king of campaign cash, with contributions over $150,000.
Maybe it was just the luck of the draw but guess who the judge was who got assigned the divorce case between Chad and Cheryl Verrett.
“My name is Julia Maldonado and I am the judge of the 507th Family District Court in Harris County, Texas.”
Most lawyers didn’t like her. Maldonado was the Houston Bar Association’s worst-ranked judge. What an honor.
But Dennis Slate, he did like her.
“And it’s why everyone should check the campaign reports of the judge where your divorce case lands,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Dennis Slate was also Maldonado’s campaign treasurer. Campaign records reviewed by Dolcefino Media show Slate and his law firm gave nearly $30,000 just to Maldonado. The most money he’s ever given to any family court judge.
“She delayed the process in a ridiculous way. I mean, we had an eight-day trial over probably four months. That’s how broken up the process was,” Cheryl Verrett said.
“You know the saying, you can’t teach a old dog new tricks,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“She allowed Slate to come into her courtroom every single time completely unprepared and draw the process out for probably an hour and a half. I’ve never seen such an unprepared person in my entire life. It was surely intentional,” Cheryl Verrett said.
But Maldonado would go on to lose her campaign for reelection and getting a new judge in the middle of the divorce case would have been a disaster.
Cheryl was oh so close to getting her freedom. Slate had been stalling, seeking continuances. And Maldonado waited until the very last minute to issue her decision.
“I bawled in the courthouse while Judge Maldonado announced that I was divorced. And I could have my maiden name back,” Cheryl Verrett said.
But those tears of joy didn’t last long.
Dennis Slate was about to try and pull off what sure looks like and intentional plan to keep those legal fees flowing.
“In mid January, Chad files something called ‘findings of fact and conclusions of law.’ I know I’m not a lawyer, but I know it means that a judge is then going to put down on paper what actually happened in the divorce case,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Chad now wanted a new trial, claiming Judge Maldonado had no authority to do it as she was no longer on the bench.
The administrative judge for the region, Susan Brown, she disagreed and the new legal fight was on.
Cheryl doesn’t think any of it was a coincidence, accusing Chad and his lawyer of intentionally delaying the case with the judge’s help.
“Maldonado probably let us spend $150,000 on a custody battle that my ex was not emotionally invested in winning. It was more about taking the children from me,” Cheryl Vernett said.
“What does that tell you about the system?” Dolcefino asked.
“It tells me it’s fixed and it’s rigged, and it especially doesn’t work for mothers who are trying to protect their children,” Cheryl Vernett said.
The Court of Appeals denied Chad’s objections, and on February 6, the findings of fact were entered into the record.
But Dennis Slate, he wasn’t done.
“This is a game for him,” Cheryl Vernett said.
Chad and his lawyer went back to the district court to the new judge.
Lillian Alexander, this time with a brand-new story that he and Cheryl weren’t coming on married on the July 2003 date that Cheryl said they were. Instead, he claimed the right date should’ve been December 31st 2003, the date of their first joint tax return.
“A fight over what happened 22 years ago,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“I’m constantly getting new filings that I have to fight. And yeah, it’s drained me,” Cheryl Vernett
You won’t believe it, but Judge Lillian Alexander actually ordered a new trial, citing concerns over whether the marriage should have been considered common law when it was.
“Claiming that Chad had been divorced only one day when Cheryl claimed they were common law married. Under Texas law, you have to be divorced at least 31 days before you can get married again,” Dolcefino told the camera.
That meant that Cheryl and Chad just divorced? They weren’t divorced anymore. They were still married.
“I think I was walking down the street just bawling. I got into my car. I was just bawling. I just couldn’t believe it. To be remarried to him, it was like I was chattel. I was property just being tossed back and forth,” Cheryl Vernett said.
But we did a little research of our own on Chad’s previous divorce. Court records show it was actually granted on June 5 of 2003, 31 days before, not one day.
And Cheryl asked Judge Alexander to reconsider her ruling, but the judged said no.
As litigation lingered, so does Chad.
“He got so much pleasure out of me being remarried to him. He sent me messages saying, you’re still my wife, you can’t do this, you can’t do that,” Cheryl Vernett said.
“We noticed something else, and it’s why we always warn you about campaign money flowing to judges, especially in family courts,” Dolcefino told the camera.
And look what happened just five days after the judge turned Cheryl down. Dennis Slate contributed $4,700 to Lillian Alexander’s campaign coffers.
“Guess he liked the new judge in the 57th District Court,” Dolcefino told the camera.
We’ve asked him about his financial investment in so much family justice.
“Because I like good judges. I give donations to judges that I think are good. I think that they should stay in place,” Dennis Slate said.
“I think that he’s getting away because he has an attorney that pays a lot of money to different judges, and I think that’s the primary way he’s allowed to get away with it,” Cheryl Vernett said.
Cheryl had another reason to finish her divorce case. She’s got a new boyfriend. And even though she’s still stuck as Chad’s wife for now, she went ahead and had a ceremonial marriage to the new guy. Because the family courts, they’ve made it impossible for her to move on with a legal one.
“It makes me feel helpless and then my family feels helpless and we all feel helpless,” Cheryl said.
You’d think Chad wants this all to be over with too, because he’s engaged after all too.
Cheryl has requested a jury trial but really wants the court to just reinstate the divorce that already happened. But that would turn off Slate’s money spigot.
“It shouldn’t be allowed. You shouldn’t be remarried to somebody who’s abused you, whose documented intention is to ruin you financially. I feel like my entire family is locked in limbo right now because the judges have no interest in helping me, and apparently no interest in acting fairly,” Cheryl Vernett said.
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