Joe put the furniture in a warehouse.
Denise and Joe Hrudka's four daughters are between the ages of 10 and 16. The divorce case has been going on for nearly five years--half of their youngest daughter's life.
"It's completely destroyed the relationship with the children," Joe says.
Denise and Joe haven't spoken to each other in three years. She's had an Order of Protection against him for two. Judge Curley ordered that police be present during an inventory that involved the two of them.
Both have claimed an array of sins by the other, including threats, stealing and property damage. A private investigator hired by Denise said in an affidavit that he'd found that her telephones were tapped. Joe says she's harassed him constantly in the media, including stories in Hard Copy and a supermarket tabloid.
The children no longer go to private school.
"It's $40,000. How am I going to pay for that?" Joe asks.
He's particularly bitter about the Order of Protection that's still in force against him.
Joe says, "I purposely didn't pick my kids up for six months or didn't see them, because she had a restraining order. I just didn't like the whole thing. It didn't bother her. She didn't care."
On his daughter's 16th birthday, Joe Hrudka gave her an ultimatum: He would buy her a car if she would persuade her mother to drop the Order of Protection against him. Denise Hrudka didn't drop the order. Joe didn't buy the car.
In April 1993, Joe petitioned the Superior Court to reduce his support payments. He said his salary was only $50,000 a year.
But that didn't include the $2 million-plus in noncompete agreements he received from the sale of Mr. Gasket, or the six million shares of stock he owns in Performance Industries, the company it became.
"At the last minute, those noncompetes came up," he says. "One has nothing to do with the other, anyway. That's not income. That was to me personally."
The money, he said, went to pay the settlement with First Interstate Bank.
Superior Court Judge Kenneth Mangum apparently didn't buy Joe's story. Not only was his obligation not reduced, he was ordered to hand over the more than $10,000 he had not paid.
According to Performance Industries documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joe made more than $200,000 in 1993.
"I think it's too high," Joe says. "If you take $250,000 [his current claimed salary], you end up with about $160,000 [net] and she gets $90,000 [in child and spousal support]. I don't think that's fair," Joe says.
"They're all tied together," he says of Denise and their children. "She's impregnated their minds. Brainwashed them.
"A mother who does that is totally worthless," he says.
"I really think that kids should be with their mother. But, in this case, I believe they're better off not being with their mother. But I do think kids really belong with their mother."
So does Denise.
About the only thing Denise and Joe Hrudka agree on is that their attorneys are getting rich, their children are losing and the courts could use an overhaul.
Joe says he'd have given Denise half of everything if she'd played by his rules from the beginning.
"I wasn't ever expecting half," says Denise. "I certainly wasn't expecting this.
"I'm in paperwork up to here," she says, motioning to her neck. "I'm doing all the legwork I can trying to save on attorneys' fees. And I've got four kids. I'm constantly driving here and picking up there--doctor, dentist, activities, cooking, cleaning. There's no room for Denise.
"I'd like to have a house to live in and own a car and have a life. I'd like to see my kids get educated."
Joe has no sympathy for her.
"She's always crying. She thinks she got ripped off or something.
"I think she brought everything upon herself," he says. "She wanted to do that. That's not being ripped off. Being ripped off is not knowing you're being ripped off is the way I look at it. She asked for all those things.
