Divorcing Husband (a Lawyer) May Have Dissipated $300K of Family Assets on TikTok Gifts (Which He Says Was a Business Strategy)
From M.B. v. C.B., decided May 15 by Westchester County (N.Y.) trial court judge James Hyer:
During the conference Plaintiff’s counsel indicated that his client was concerned about Defendant’s continued erratic behavior including his use of the social media platform TikTok (hereinafter “TikTok”), including representations made during recordings of Defendant on TikTok that he had gifted significant sums of funds believed to be in excess of twenty or thirty thousand dollars:
“TikTok has the ability for individuals to give gifts to other people on TikTok, so you go live on TikTok and then it’s showing what you’re doing live. [Defendant], from what we can tell, has given away well in excess of twenty or thirty thousand dollars in the last two months to just third parties, individuals, and bragged about it very openly. We have recorded video of all of this. He talks about giving Pegasuses, giving universes. A universe costs $532 to the individual who gives it and it has a cash value that’s redeemable by the person who receives it of around $500.”
Plaintiff’s counsel marked as Court Exhibit 1 a summary of certain TikTok recordings wherein he noted the following including asserted quotes of Defendant:
… “I’m gonna pegasus” with a woman as the background. Pegasus is a virtual gift you get after reaching the highest “gifter level.” … To reach level 50 gifter, you need to spent a significant amount of real money on gifts (estimated around $845,000.00). You can then send Pegasus during a tick tok live….
“That’s the Lord Marcellus one. I don’t even know how many of these I sent but I send a lot of these. I sent a lot of Lord Marcellus’. That’s a vault gift. It’s the best gift you can send other than the Pegasus” … Lord Macellus is a Tik Tok gift worth $10 ….
“You wanna be like me. You wanna drop the uni’s. You wanna drop the vaults.” … Tick tok Universe $500 ….
Plaintiff’s counsel also played several TikTok recordings of Defendant, one of which was asserted to have been made the day before the conference referring to this action, two of which were asserted to have been recorded just prior to the last conference in this courthouse with one being filmed in the hallway outside the courtroom and the other being filmed in the courthouse bathroom:
“I would note, your Honor, this is all while my client is not receiving child support, spousal support, has received no temporary counsel fees.
“We have no idea what the scope of the money that he has dissipated is except these very specific statements that he has made that are all recorded and that are all publicly accessible, talking about all the gifts that he has given, all of this money that he’s giving away and, respectfully, and, again, I’m not trying to inflame things, but [Defendant], aside from TikTok streaming live here in the courthouse in direct contrad
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