The whole idea behind a routine divorce is to keep it simple. If someone tries to make a federal case out of it, the notion of simple, uncontested, no-fault divorce has a way of flying out the window. Costs and anguish only mount.

Just how caustic divorce strife can become may be evident in the case of a former Sewickley couple. The business man husband was recently sentenced in federal court to three years probation, fined $5,000 and ordered to avoid all contact with his ex-wife and children. He had been charged by federal authorities of making false statements in order to get a passport. He had also been charged of interstate domestic violence, but prosecutors later withdrew that charge.

The case reportedly had grown out of emails the man had sent to his ex-wife in which he allegedly made threats against her and her attorney. He was arraigned on state charges of stalking and harassment in October 2010. At that time he was ordered to surrender his passport. But prosecutors in the federal case said that he attempted to get another one eight days later, saying he'd lost the original. The man pleaded guilty to the federal passport charge in May.

During the recent sentencing in the federal case, the man's attorney argued for leniency. He posited that it was a situation in which a routine divorce had been turned into a federal case by the ex-wife's attorney. He alleged that the ex-wife's lawyer had used his connections as a former federal prosecutor to punitively escalate the matter. He also argued that the case had already cost his client months in confinement, hundreds of thousands of dollars and time with his children.

The ex-wife asked the judge to reject the notion that this was a domestic squabble. She said she was a target of a campaign of threat and intimidation that had deeply frightened her.

In addition to the sentence imposed, the judge took under advisement a request to have the defendant pay his ex-wife's attorney fees in the case, and for home security upgrades she made after getting the emails.

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, "Ex-wife's attorney blamed for federal case," Brian Bowling, Oct. 4, 2011