Oh, this one is terrific. Schadenfreude this rich doesn’t come along every day. And I’m not talking about the Miami Dolphins. (Sorry, Dolphins fans … couldn’t resist.)
Right-wing nutjob financier Richard Mellon Scaife, whose occupation consists of living off a billion and a half dollars in trust funds and who has given millions to right-wing and “family values” causes and candidates, is going through a nasty divorce. No, it’s more than nasty. It’s delicious.
Remember [Scaife]? The cantankerous, reclusive 75-year-old billionaire who’s spent a sizable chunk of his inherited fortune bankrolling conservative causes and trying to kneecap Democrats? He’s best known for funding efforts to smear then-President Bill Clinton, but more quietly he’s given in excess of $300 million to right-leaning activists, watchdogs and think tanks. Atop his list of favorite donees: the family-values-focused Heritage Foundation, which has published papers with titles such as “Restoring a Culture of Marriage.”
The culture of his own marriage is apparently past restoring. With the legal fight still in the weigh-in phase, the story of Scaife v. Scaife already includes a dog-snatching, an assault, a night in jail and that divorce court perennial, allegations of adultery.
Oh, and there’s the money. Three words, people.
No. Pre. Nup.
[...]
The numbers are just one of many we-kid-you-not dimensions to this tale. In late 2005, [Richard's wife] Ritchie Scaife peered through a window at one of her husband’s many homes and saw him with one Tammy Sue Vasco, a woman whose colorful criminal history includes an arrest for prostitution. And this tryst was no one-afternoon stand. Ritchie Scaife describes Vasco in court filings as her husband’s “mistress.”
It gets better.
Indeed it does. Through a catfight on the street between Scaife’s wife and mistress, liaisons with said mistress at a seedy “no-tell motel,” and a kidnapped dog, the story has enough twists and turns for a Lifetime movie starring Melissa Gilbert and James Brolin.
Here’s one of my favorite vignettes:
One of the most astounding stacks of papers in the pile that is the Scaife divorce is the inventory of Ritchie’s stuff, compiled by her lawyers. The list runs for more than 80 pages, like an episode of “Antiques Roadshow” that will not end. Meat platters, sardine forks, melon forks, a circa-1804 Dutch teapot, a painting by Magritte, Victorian cream pitchers, bread trays, candlesticks, a sterling silver nutmeg grater, flatware service . . . you get the picture. Much of it was stored at Vallamont, the weekend house Richard Scaife owns near the Rolling Rock Club.
“Defendant has and continues to unlawfully hold in his possession six pairs of asparagus tongs manufactured by Mappin & Webb, Birmingham, 1926 weighing 10 ounces total,” reads one of dozens of paragraphs. “The last-known location for these items was at ‘Vallamont,’ 132 Pheasant Circle, Ligonier, Pa. 15658. The estimated cost for these items is $1,800.”
Yep. Six pairs of asparagus tongs worth $1,800. I’d never even heard of asparagus tongs before.
Anyway, the sordid details are too numerous to recount here, so just go read the article and laugh, laugh, laugh! And, remember, this is happening to a guy who largely bankrolls the Right. Some family values there, “Dickie.”
But, you know, no one leaves Blast Off! empty-handed. So, to Richard Scaife, here’s something that’s all your own and you don’t have to share it with your wife: congratulations! Today’s Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!
