Ill. farmer pleads guilty in bankruptcy fraud case
Bankruptcy
A southern Illinois farmer pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal bankruptcy fraud charges, and his attorney said outside court that his client had nothing to do with the unsolved killings of a potential witness and his wife.
Joseph Diekemper, 60, of Carlyle, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank and mail fraud, making a false statement to the Department of Agriculture and perjuring himself during earlier bankruptcy proceedings.
His wife, Margaret Diekemper, 64, pleaded guilty last week to a federal charge of conspiring with her husband to commit bankruptcy fraud and agreed to help authorities.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Hudson would not comment after Wednesday's hearing. However, federal prosecutors have said Diekemper filed for bankruptcy in 2004, then hid farm equipment, allowed vehicle titles to be put under other people's names and fraudulently obtained agricultural subsidies on land that already had been turned over to a creditor.
As part of the scheme, authorities say, Diekemper stashed a tractor behind a false wall in an outbuilding on property rented by George and Linda Weedon.
The Weedons were found shot to death in April 2007, just days after George Weedon approached the FBI about the tractor and told an investigator he worried Joseph Diekemper would burn down his house if he ever found out, according to an FBI memo filed in the fraud case. When the couple's bodies were found, their rental home was ablaze.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.