(New York Post) - An accused philandering elderly Manhattan private equity bigwig who once owned a menagerie of exotic animals is telling his soon-to-be ex-wife that he is now totally destitute, according to court hearings.
John H. Foster, 82, a longtime health devices mogul and managing partner of the $800 million private equity firm HealthPointCapital, claims that during his 15-year marriage to wife Stephanie Foster, 57, his roughly $50 million net worth plummeted “to what is now barely, barely a positive net worth, if at all,” according to his lawyer, Linda Rosenthal, in Manhattan Supreme Court in June, a transcript shows.
Stephanie’s out-of-control clothes shopping occurred “at a rate that … none of us can conceive,” his lawyer said.
But the high-flying exec’s estranged spouse argues she was “stunned” when her hubby suddenly cried poverty — because he was still constantly flying back and forth from Florida to New York City for Botox, hair-dyeing and nail care appointments.
“I mean, if I was $12 million in debt, I would be pretty freaking worried,” she told The Post, referring to John’s alleged in-the-red ledger, during an exclusive interview. “I wouldn’t be gallivanting around … doing my beauty treatments.”
The wife said she saw a damning text from her husband suggesting that his claims of poverty were just part of an elaborate ruse to fool her and the courts.
Her camp says that in reality, the business mogul continues to bank millions of dollars in deals — including his days-old sale of an exclusive Fishers Island home — and purchased an $800,000 Hinckley yacht just last year.
John’s fortunes only supposedly reversed, leaving him the $12 million in the hole, when the divorce began, Stephanie and her lawyer have argued in proceedings which they say he’s tried to keep from the public — and his shareholders.
The pair is set for another showdown in Manhattan court Monday.
“He’s asset-stripping the marital estate,” Stephanie told The Post.
Stephanie said their court fight is just another corporate game for her husband — and claimed she even found a text on his phone thanking a family lawyer for his help in hiding money from her.
Rosenthal fired back to The Post in a statement, “John Foster has been entirely transparent and aboveboard with the divorce court and his wife.
“Any suggestion to the contrary is false,” his lawyer said.
But Stephanie said she saw the damning text from her husband during an attempted reconciliation Christmas lunch at the posh French La Goulue eatery in 2021.
John briefly bowed out to walk their dog and left his phone behind, she said. Stephanie said she long had her husband’s phone password for ordering food and helping him download apps, so she logged in — to check if he was still texting the women with whom she believed he was cheating on her.
Instead, she said, she discovered the “shocking” text from her husband to a family lawyer who she said had represented both of them in the past.
“Your net-worth strategy worked. Steph is stunned,” read the text message shared with The Post.
“Told me I’m bankrupt!” John’s alleged text continued. “She’s very upset!”
Stephanie says her “hands were shaking” as she read the text and quickly took a picture before putting the phone back before her husband returned.
Despite decades of living a lavish lifestyle, once the divorce began, John declared himself “suddenly destitute,” said Stephanie’s lawyer, BriAnne Copp, during opening statements in court in June, according to a transcript.
“This case is about more than a simple divorce,” Copp said at the hearing. “At its heart, it is about manipulation and control — of my client, of the finances, and even of the information that is available to present at this trial.”
Lanny Davis, who was recently retained by Stephanie as a legal adviser — and previously served as special counsel to former President Bill Clinton and as a civil liberties panel adviser to former President George W. Bush — told The Post, “We hope that by her testimony on Monday, Mrs. Foster can set the record straight and help achieve a just result of an equitable distribution of ‘marital assets,’ as defined under New York law.”
Copp, who declined to comment, citing a confidentiality stipulation, argued in June that John has been manipulating his finances since the start of his divorce proceedings by moving around millions of dollars to avoid any payout to his wife.
Copp has said in court that her client left her career as an investment banker with Deutsche Bank when the pair married in 2009 and that she now has no assets to speak of.
“While he’s lived a fabulous lifestyle for the last 60 years, now that he’s embroiled in a divorce, now he’s suddenly $12 million in debt,” Copp said at the hearing.
That ”fabulous” lifestyle included a $10 million home sold just days ago on the exclusive Fisher Island, a 5,000-acre (7.8-square-mile) Texas ranch filled with exotic African animals — including oryx, sable and zebra — and a Gulfstream IV-SP jet that the former couple used for weekend trips to the Texas ranch, Fisher’s Island and John’s apartment at the Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., her camp claims.
Copp said in her court statement that John also bought an $800,000 Hinckley yacht and deposited over $3 million in his account in the past year alone.
But his lawyer blamed Stephanie’s clothes-shopping habits for partially draining more than $45 million in her hubby’s net worth and said she is beating up on a poor old man, according to recent court hearings.
Stephanie claims she asked her husband — just days after finding the seemingly damning text message — why he was still spending prolifically on his self-care coiffing rather than huddling with a bankruptcy lawyer.
“I said, ‘I think your limited partners would be very interested in knowing that their [general partner] is $12 million in the red,’ ” she recalled.
“He looks at me and he goes, ‘Well, that would be pretty embarrassing, wouldn’t it?’ ” she claimed.
According to Stephanie, their marriage ended not because of a long string of her husband’s alleged affairs but because of a comment he made during her efforts to review for her elderly husband’s estate planning.
“I don’t care what happens to you when I die,” John allegedly said to her, Stephanie told The Post.
“I filed for divorce pretty quickly afterwards,” she said.
The caustic proceeding has been beset by what Stephanie calls “corporate chess.”
It also isn’t the first time John has been accused of attempting to hide assets.
In 2014, John and one of HealthPointCapital’s portfolio companies, Alphatec, lost a major lawsuit when they were accused of orchestrating “a fraudulent transfer of assets” to avoid paying a debt, according to BioSpace.com.
A jury ultimately awarded the plaintiff, OrthoTec, a $73 million verdict.
By Peter Senzamici
October 20, 2024
