One Saturday in June 2002, Eugene Pallisco and his new bride, Lesley Keith, celebrated their $35,000 wedding and reception at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn.
The
bride sported her 2-carat diamond ring. One hundred guests dined on
crab cakes rémoulade, wild mushroom tartlets and $40 bottles of French
merlot. They danced.
Not in attendance: Pallisco’s other wife and their four children.
Seven years later, Keith, 37, who now lives in Arizona, is seeking an
annulment and money from Pallisco, 44, of West Bloomfield. She is
charging that he is a bigamist who kept his 15-year marriage with his
other wife a secret from her.
Pallisco, who is in the scrap metal and real estate business, admits that he was married to Marie Ann Hallman, who was born in August 1970 and is of West Bloomfield, at the time of his wedding to Keith. But he said the latter union was never official because the marriage license was never filed with the county after the ceremony.
Oakland County Circuit Judge Cheryl Matthews has set a Sept. 1 trial date in the case.
Pallisco tried to get the court file sealed earlier this month, saying the allegations were "scandalous" and would ruin his reputation. The file includes the then-happy couple's wedding pictures taken at the Ritz-Carlton in Dearborn, where the wedding was celebrated.
Matthews denied his motion, saying dryly, "The rice is still on the wedding photos."
He says, she says
Pallisco is a well-to-do businessman who was living a double life, said Keith's attorney, Norman Lippitt. "He told her from the beginning he was divorced," Lippitt said. "She had no reason to doubt him. This was a bigamist's marriage."
Pallisco has several explanations, according to the court files. In addition to his contention that "it's not legal because the marriage license was not filed," he also argues in a separate lawsuit in Oakland County that an "unknown woman" -- Keith, the woman he exchanged vows with in the photos -- applied for a marriage license without his knowledge in 2002 and is "impugning him regarding his marital status."
In that suit, Judge Rae Lee Chabot, unaware of the Ritz-Carlton wedding, ruled the marriage application invalid.
Another explanation offered by Pallisco's attorney, Robert Sheehan, is that Pallisco is the victim of a bizarre extortion that began in 2000 when a Detroit police officer tried to "shake down" Pallisco's scrap and recycling business. Sheehan said Pallisco knew Keith casually, and when she learned of his problems with the police, told him she and her family had connections with the Police Department. If they had a "pretend" marriage, Sheehan said, then Pallisco, too, would be "family" and the shakedowns would end.
"The wedding was a sham, and she knew it," Sheehan said. "And despite my client's better judgment, he agreed to it."
What about the diamond ring and the $35,000 wedding?
Problems from the Start
"Yes," Sheehan said. "There was an event. And a ring. I'm sure you've seen the pictures."
However it ends, the marriage was far from a match made in heaven, according to court documents.
Pallisco met Keith in June 1997 at Picano's restaurant in Troy, where she worked as a bartender and waitress. In February of the following year, Keith said Pallisco told her he was divorced and asked her out for dinner, according to court filings.
In the course of their courtship, she said, he never took her to his home -- something she found odd. But by 1998, he was supporting her, she said in her court filings. Pallisco, according to the suit, took her and her family members on trips to Las Vegas and Chicago, and showered her with gifts.
Four days before the 2002 wedding, Keith applied for a marriage license at the Oakland County Clerk's Office, listing Pallisco as the groom. The night before the wedding, Keith said in her suit, Pallisco wanted to cancel it, but he went ahead with it. They fought and argued on their wedding night, the suit said, and Pallisco left.
Within days of the wedding, the couple moved to Las Vegas and eventually to Arizona, but Pallisco was gone for weeks at a time, missing holidays and telling Keith he had out-of-state business, she said in her complaint. Keith alleged she repeatedly asked him for a copy of the marriage license so that she could open bank accounts in their names, but he never produced one.
Pallisco's attorney denied those allegations and said the two never lived together. And any money Keith got was a loan from Pallisco, Sheehan said. Pallisco has filed a suit in Arizona, asking for the money back.
Keith eventually called the Oakland County Clerk's Office and learned that the marriage license had never been filed by the minister who oversaw the ceremony. In a sworn affidavit to the court, the minister, Robert Zaloga, said he does not know why he failed to file the license, but that he specifically recalls marrying the couple, who wanted the ceremony to have a "Catholic tone."
"I specifically recall having a casual conversation with Eugene and the best man before the ceremony, including the fact that he was moving to Las Vegas," Zaloga said.
By L.L. Brasier of the Detriot Free Press
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Posted by: regionmap.blogspot.com | 09/02/2009 at 08:31 AM