Child support payments of $28,000 a month.
That’s what high profile attorney Willie Gary is paying his former lover Diana Gowins monthly.
Damn, that’s a lot of money
Well it wasn’t always that way. In the beginning he was giving her $28,000 a month. But then he started getting an inkling she wasn’t using this money just for taking care of the twins they had together. According to the court documents, it turns out Diana wasn’t putting the money into the two kid’s college fund like she promised! She was splurging the money on cruises without the kids, tummy tucks, a Steinway piano, and designer clothes. She also spent thousands on private school tuition and diamonds for her oldest child, a teenage daughter from a previous relationship. Yes, diamonds.
Willie Gary got pissed
So what happened next was that Willie Gary, along with his lawyers, argued in November of 2005 to Fulton County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Wright that Diana Gowins was misusing the child support to pay for things not directly related to the well being of their children together. I mean, seriously, tummy tucks and cruises? I’d be pissed off too!
They ended up winning the case and his child support payments were reduced to more modest $5000 a month, leaving Diana with presumably only one cruise every two months, instead of weekly. The judge then told Gowins, a former nurse, to go back to work and quit going crazy with her lavish spending but she refused to do so. She responded to the judge that she has a right to be a stay-at-home mom.
After a little bit, it seemed Diana didn’t like her bimonthly cruises and wanted them back up to a weekly schedule. So Diana Gowins took Willie Gary back to court to contest the reduction in child support payments.
Georgia Court of Appeals rejects the reduction
The Georgia Court of Appeals decides to side with the mother, Diana, thereby throwing out the previous ruling by Judge Cynthia Wright. The child support payments have now been re-raised to $28,000 a month.
“It’s a big decision,” said Diana Gowins’ attorney, Randy Kessler. After reading a copy of the ruling by the appellate court he faxed a letter to Willie Gary that afternoon with a demand for $300,000 immediately in order to catch up with the difference from the time that Willie was only paying $5000 a month. After this, Kessler expects Willie to resume the regular monthly payments of $28,000.
Willie Gary makes a salary of about $13,000,000 (that’s 13 million) a year, so according to Diana Gowin’s lawyer, the child support payments of $28,000 are comparable to a man earning an annual salary of $130,000 paying $280 a month for their twins.
“He agreed to it,” says Diana’s lawyer Randy Kessler. “He can afford it. He can’t just change his mind.”
Willie Gary taking it to the Georgia Supreme Court
The plot thickens. Willie Gary and his Atlanta attorney, Kenny Schatten, are now planning on appealing the decision to the Georgia Supreme Court.
“I just look at this decision [by the appellate court] as a small hurdle,” he said.
$28 thousand a month in child support isn’t chump change, even for the $13 million dollar man Willie Gary.
