Trump Fraud Case and Sports Betting in NC Plus Family Law Q&A

Welcome in to Judica County Radio. Your host are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

I'm Morgan Patrick, Consumer Advocate. When we return, yes, the Trump fraud case. We'll talk about it. Also, sports betting in North Carolina about to be legalized.

We'll talk about that as well. It's all coming up on Judica County Radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. Managing partners Whitaker and Hamer Law Firm, your law firm for life.

They have offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, Consumer Advocate. We're about to get into the legal topics. Now listen, if you have a situation that you are facing and you've got questions and you need answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info briefly what the call's about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com.

That's info at judicacounty.com. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. But gentlemen, welcome in. How have we been?

Yes, I did well. It's not even a real thing, man. It's not.

It's fabricated for consumerism. You guys should be treating every day like Valentine's. That's what you do. Somebody say that. No, that's not what I do.

That's what you should do. That's what you say when you get caught with absolutely nothing. Oh, honey. Honey, it's every day.

It's every day. I did chocolates and a card. You know, we had fun. You're supposed to talk to your significant other about how the economy is really down right now and how the smart thing to do is nothing. We don't usually do anything. Me and my wife are, I don't know, we're 18, 19.

I can't remember. We're a ways into this at this point. But we got in a good habit early on of like really not making a big deal about Valentine's Day. And it was hard early. But we got used to it. How?

It sounds very easy. That we don't make it. But we did something last night. We are Valentine's Day. We did something Valentine's Day. We bought. She's a big fan of Andrea Bocelli. Oh, nice. Who's not, man?

Me, I guess, apparently. But she's a big fan. So tickets went on sale.

We bought them a while ago. It didn't even occur to me that it was on Valentine's Day. But it was. It was at the PNC.

It was on Valentine's Day. It was packed. It was the worst traffic I've ever seen for any event I've ever gone to. At PNC? Really? It was the worst, man.

It took me like 40 minutes to get in there. And I think it was because most. It was a high age. I'm an old man. But it was a higher age group attending that show.

Are you trying to say, are you saying old people can't drive? That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying I think that was a little different makeup than when we went to Metallica.

It was sold out. We got right in. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. Harry Styles was the worst I saw, man. Harry Styles was ungodly bad.

I wonder why. Yeah. And then you get in there and it's just reeee the whole time, man. Sounded like a velociraptor just in my brain, just squealing. And Joe, you went VIP backstage for Harry Styles. How was that?

Oh, man, you know, I'll never forget the moment. When you're in the presence of greatness, he had a really cool dress on. We went to see Andrea Bocelli.

And I do like him. He just does a lot of moaning, right? He does a lot of opera. He's opera.

Yeah. So there's a lot of opera there. But they played all the Bugs Bunny songs, right? I don't know what they're called, but the two Bugs Bunny cartoons that are all opera. They played those.

Ah, okay. Then they played the Boats and Hoes song, right? Yeah. What's that one from Step Brothers? Yeah, that's good, man.

Andrea Bocelli did this. Is he blind? He is blind. Okay, okay. I was making sure I had my guys right. I felt like I was on a fourth grade field trip, except my buddies weren't there to goof off with me. It's just your wife. You've got to behave.

You look over at her on Valentine's Day and you're like, I sure wish my buddies were here. Everybody was so quiet. I had to go after work. I didn't get a chance to eat, so I bought a chicken sandwich while I was there and had a coat.

It was so quiet. I had to eat the whole french fry in my mouth and chew slowly. Because any time I bit into my chicken sandwich, the people around me stared at me. I was like, they're selling them here. I can't be in the wrong.

I bought it right out there. Now, Josh, when you eat a sandwich in public, are you one of those that moans how much you like it after you bite Andrea Bocelli? Oh, this is so good! Dude, this is a good sandwich. Please refrain from eating your sandwich while I'm singing. Was it a Chick-fil-A sandwich?

They got those now. No, it was the other one. What is it?

As soon as we stopped going there regularly, man, full-on Chick-fil-A comes to town. And then I saw on Twitter, or X, what are you supposed to call it now? X, formerly known as Twitter?

Yeah, X. They had a lot of legal, if there's a hashtag, Law of Twitter, and if you're an attorney or whatever and you're interested in that kind of stuff, you put that in there. They had a lot of legal pickup lines. Did you see any of those, Joe?

No, man. For Valentine's Day, legal pickup lines. Yeah, they asked attorneys on Twitter, give us your best legal pickup lines. And I only saw two that I could repeat. Do them right now. Jot these down for the next Valentine's Day.

Let's see if they work. This one, I had to pull the other one up on my phone because I took a screenshot of it, but this one said, baby, if your words were in a contract, you'd be the fine print. That was one. And this other one's very specific to real estate law, which might not go over well, but hold on here. The other one that I liked was, are you a restrictive covenant? Because I'd love to touch and concern you. I thought that one was funny. I don't think any of that's working, but I like it. I kind of feel like I feel dirty. I need a shower.

What was that? Because as we all know, a restrictive covenant affects real property. Yeah, everybody knows that. That's just common knowledge. As every listener of this show knows, everyone loves covenants on this show.

It's like a prerequisite for listening, is you got to love covenants. And then every time we get through a holiday season, like we just got through Valentine's Day, I always try to rank the holidays as to my favorite versus my least favorite. And Valentine's Day still has to be one of my least favorite. Is it not dead last? What's lower? Arbor Day?

What do people do more? I don't even think Arbor Day even counts, man. Right, and didn't we just say Valentine's Day was kind of a made-up holiday?

Yeah, it's made up, man. What other made-up holidays? I would put St. Pat's in there, St. Patty's Day. I like that one because it involves beer. St. Patty's Day is better than Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day, man, it's enough. We put it on the scale, right? It factors into the equation, but I think it might be dead last, man. I think it might be.

Yeah, I don't know if that's for everybody or if that's more of a male-centric point of view. But anyway, it is what it is here for the radio show. Yeah. All right, well, today we've got some listener questions we always answer, but I wanted to spend some time. Again, we try to be apolitical on the show.

That's not what we're about here. But I want to talk a little bit about former President Trump. He's got a fraud trial going on in New York. I think if you just watch the news and you don't get much perspective from an attorney, I don't know that you get all the facts or maybe completely understand what's going on there.

I don't think I did until I actually sat down and looked at what was happening. But we're going to talk about that a little bit more because I think that's kind of interesting to delve into. And then, Joseph, I think we'll talk about your favorite legal topic today, too. Yeah, man, gambling.

Sorry. So gambling, we talked about it when it was working its way through the North Carolina House, but gambling was approved in certain places for certain things. And online sports betting is coming.

It's been delayed months. Yeah, got to get on with it. I'm getting peppered. I don't know if you guys are, but I'm getting peppered with the FanDuel commercials.

Yep. Look, man, I'm so firmly entrenched into their algorithm. They don't even show them to me. It's like we're wasting money showing this guy these commercials.

I'm getting like the full court press, Twitter, Facebook, anything I'm on. It's like, you know, it's who played at Carolina, Kenny. What's Kenny's last name? Smith. Kenny Smith. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like Kenny Smith and Gronk and all these famous people telling me that it's about to be. It's about to be time, baby. Let's lose some money.

Let's lose some money together, man. I got to get one of those groups where it's like science, you know, like... A gambling addict support group? No, where they're like...

Okay, sorry. Yeah, like somebody, there needs to be like a, and maybe there is, and I'm just not smart enough to find it. There needs to be like a consortium of people who are like, just like Vegas has the people that are setting the lines. We need like... Somebody fighting back against them. Yeah. Yeah. The problem is, is they're there. It's just the majority of the people are degenerate gamblers who can't, who have no impulse control, man. So, but they're out there. Trust me.

All right. Well, coming up on Judica County radio, we'll take a short break, come back. And again, the Trump fraud case and sports betting for the state of North Carolina.

That's going to be the topic du jour when we return. Judica County radio, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, managing partners, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina. You can find them at Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, offices conveniently located, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and Moorhead City. If you've got a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions, you need some answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney will return your phone call. And you can always email your questions to the show info at judicacounty.com. We'll answer them on a future broadcast.

We'll be back right after this. Welcome back into Judica County radio. Your hosts, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. They're the managing partners and practicing attorneys here in the great state of North Carolina. Remember Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

Offices located, Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Varina, Gastonia, and in Moorhead City. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We go back and forth on the legal topics each and every week.

There's also question and answer, so a lot to get to today. Josh, let's start off. You want to go Trump or you want to go legal sports betting? Let's do, let's, let's, let's talk about Trump. That's always polarizing. Our numbers seem to go up when we talk about Trump. I don't know if it's people that like Trump or people that don't like Trump, but they, they go up a little bit. Um, but Donald Trump, I'm just clarifying.

So, um, so again, we, we say this all the time, me and Joseph, not here to play, play favorites, uh, just kind of look at it as abstractly as we, as we can arbitrarily as we can. Uh, so Trump has some legal challenges ahead of him, former president Trump, and one of them is, is what the media talks about the New York fraud case. And, and do you guys, have you guys been following that at all? You know, what's going on in that one?

No. I see the headlines, but, uh, it's just a kind of a broad brush. So this is, you know, New York, New York and New York city, um, have some of the toughest like business laws, you know, almost to like, in my opinion, almost to like the nth degree, like it's almost, you almost can't violate some of these laws if you try, you know, but, but that's, that's where this is happening. And you've got these, you've got these fraud charges against Trump, and we're going to oversimplify it for our purposes today. Uh, but basically the, the crux of the argument, um, and we have a lot of clients that do this Joseph, but if you've, if you work a lot with banks, right, a lot of people who are in the real estate world who own commercial real estate and of any size, you know, Trump has, you know, the big hotels and the golf courses and things like that. But even if you just have like small commercial space or you have investment property and you go to, you have a banking relationship with a bank, a lot of times every year, if they've got mortgages out to you, if they got commercial loans, uh, they ask you for a person what's called a personal financing statement. And a personal financing statement is really, it's got to be based in some reality, but it's your opinion of your, of your worth, right? So they're going to ask you where all your bank accounts, you know, what are you, what are your, what do you have in your bank accounts?

You got life insurance, how about your automobiles? And then they'll ask you about your, your real estate value. And so they ask you basically what, what do you think this is worth? And then, you know, what do you owe on it? And they try to get like a net value, but it's your, it's your idea of your personal worth. Um, and the bank has to be based in some element of reality. But at the same time, you're not, they're not asking you to go and get, you know, fully vetted appraisals on these properties. That's just not the way it works in our experience.

Yeah. So they're asking you, you can't fabricate it. You can't make up assets, but again, you're not going to get the bank's going to get an appraisal if they're concerned about it, right?

You're not going to get an appraisal. So some people just get it straight out of their books, right? This is what we got it on the books for.

This is what we paid for it. Some people use tax value. Some people know the market and say, well, if I sold this today, I can make this, you know? So it's your personal financing statement and it's a component of what the bank will use to lend to you, right? So this really doesn't come into play if you, you know, if you own your house and you went and you got a mortgage with the credit union or Wells Fargo or whoever you got your mortgage through, this doesn't really come into play. This is really for people who have a lot of assets that, you know, might need a mortgage or they might need commercial loans. But so not everybody deals with these personal financing statements is not something that everybody plays with every day or sees. But where these charges come from is basically they say Trump improperly inflated the values that his company put on these personal financing statements that went to a bank to get commercial loans.

And so every year, and I think they said eight years or nine years or 10 years, 11 years, 11 years. Yeah, I did check out that part. But, um, but, but that's it. And you know, the banks kind of have testified like, Hey, we don't really rely on those. If we have any questions, we get our own appraisals.

We have our internal process. We don't lend to money. And these loans were paid back with interest. The bank made money on it. And, and New York city decided that they would, I don't know how they got wind of this. I really don't know the facts on how it came up, but that's the basis of their charges.

You inflated this, you got a loan that maybe you wouldn't have gotten otherwise. And that's, that's the fraud. But there's no, and I think it's important to note too.

One of the things that, that I did read is that, uh, the New York's anti-fraud statute says that a finding of fraud doesn't require specific intent to deceive or that money is actually lost. Isn't that nuts? Which is nuts. Yeah. Cause you know, we, we think as attorneys, we always think in terms of damages, like it's, what kind of actionable claim do you have without damages?

Like, and I tell folks all the time, you don't have damage. What's the point? Right. Uh, so yeah, it's nuts, man.

It is nuts. It's nuts because in North Carolina, I mean, the basis to fraud, there's different types of fraud, but there's got to be some intent to deceive, whether by telling somebody a lie or withholding information that would have cleared it up. Like you've, you've got to make an overt act to do something to get, to get somebody else to act. So you're trying to defraud someone out of something. Um, I'd be super bummed out, man, if I am convicted of something fraudulent when I had literally zero intent to deceive anyone and no one lost any money, man. And that's, that's negligence, right? I mean, that's just, that's just making a mistake. Like if you take out the negligence, like even, even in a case of negligence, if you have no damages, what case do you have?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, true. But like, if you don't have intent to deceive, it just boggles my mind that that law's on the books and it boggles my mind. You know, a lot of, they've quoted a lot of attorneys. And I think I saw an AP article where they quoted an attorney who has sued Trump before for violating other real estate, like, you know, uh, tenant landlord type laws and stuff. So they went around and interviewed a lot of attorneys.

Uh, the AP did in this, in this story I read recently, they were like, this is terrible, right? This is, this is a bad precedent. And, and, and by the time this gets to air, there may already be a judgment right now. The judgment is pending when we, when we're sitting down to record in the studio, but, um, it, the, the rumor is that the judge is going to find him guilty of, of this and it'll get appealed. I mean, this'll get kicked out of court super fast, you know, in the court of appeals or the Supreme court. So we're all kind of wasting our time.

Cause once this gets to a very non partisan, uh, anyway, anyway. But yeah, fraud without intent and without damage, you don't have a damage party. The bank, the bank's elected to lend him this money, you know, like that's the thing that I don't fully understand. And you see a lot of folks, I've seen a lot of people in the, in the high end business community that provide a lot of these, these personal financial statements. And they've dealt with loans of this type, you know, talking about how this is not unusual, right?

Like it's not unusual. No one's the bank is, is adequate. Even if they are lending him this money, they're going to be adequately collateralized to where if it goes up, you know, if it goes bottoms out, they're going to be okay. Like they're going to, they're making sure that they're taken care of, you know? So yeah, it's, it's nuts, man.

Yeah. If you're one, if you're one of those people that thinks the world's out to get former president Donald Trump, this should be your exhibit one. Cause this doesn't, this doesn't make sense to me as a North Carolina attorney, like none of this would ever come up in a North Carolina court.

You'd be thrown out, you know, immediately. And so I think, you know, we live in a, in a world where if you ask questions about certain things, you're kind of branded a certain way. And so I think a lot of people are afraid to talk about certain things in public or afraid to, to, to do, to do certain things in certain ways. But this one throws up all kinds of red flags and people who know what it's about. Like, I think most people just see the little 30 seconds on the news and they don't, they don't really know what a personal financing statement is.

They never really had to fill one out. Um, it all sounds bad when you like, say it, you know, what the state, but like in the real world, it's just kind of a non it's not, it's not even like, I don't even know who thought this was a good idea. Like, and that law is crazy. The whole thing man is, is it could be right. Like if, if, cause we're unbiased, dude, we don't care.

Right? Like ultimately we come into this and we don't care about anyone other than each other. Obviously we care about each other deeply, but uh, I care about you, Joe, but like we're perfectly neutral, man. And so if you look at this, like I could see, you know, if you just look at the plain facts, like, you know, I don't think that it's necessarily disputed that it seems like he inflated some values and made some misrepresentations about things.

And I'm not, we're not saying that's a good thing. Right. But again, who suffered from this?

Like where is, where are the damages? That's the, that's the part that really gives you pause because it's just, I don't know, man. Um, but he did have a, he did have one lineman that I will commend. He had a, he had a great quote and it was kind of just pulling the reverse UNO card.

You ever heard of pulling the reverse UNO card out? And his quote was, what happened here, sir, is a fraud on me. Imagine you're charged with fraud and you're like, no, no, no, this is fraud. Well, the judge in this case has really run his court. I'm not familiar with the judges in New York or I'm a North Carolina attorney, but the judge has handled the, I mean, and it's a, it's a big case and I'm sure Trump's not the easiest person to have in your, your courtroom. But I think the judge has made a lot of questionable decisions on how he's run the case and what he's let in and what he's not, you know, it's, it's all, it's all weird from, from an attorney's perspective, just looking at it, you know, but if I, if I was one of those people that thought Trump was getting a raw deal, all the time, this would be exhibit number one, because I, you can't even point to a case like this. I've never even heard of a case like this before, you know, and for it to get this far and everybody to feel this confident that there's going to be a judgment just seems a little crazy. But what do I know? I tell you, it's going to be interesting to see how it all plays out, uh, by, by our next program, maybe we're going to know something.

Uh, but it kind of sounds like you guys are both in the boat of it's a much ado about nothing and, uh, and we'll see how it all plays out. Judica County radio. We are going to get to the sports betting.

We're going to have to wait for a little bit. We're going to do some question and answer coming up on the other side, and then we will talk about what is coming and that is sports betting in the state of North Carolina. Again, you're listening to Judica County radio, your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead city. You've got a legal situation you're facing and you need questions answered. I've got a phone number for you. 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can always send your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Email is info at judicacounty.com. That's info at judicacounty.com.

We've got Q and A coming up next. Welcome back in to Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm. Again, offices conveniently located for you in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay, Verina, Gastonia, and in Morehead city. Again, Whitaker and Hamer, your law firm for life.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. If you have a legal situation you're facing, you've got questions you need answers to, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. The number is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about and an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And again, we always say this and we mean it. We want your emails. You can email your questions to the show, info at judicacounty.com. And we are focusing in on family law questions this show.

So Josh, Joe, take it away. During the break, I did some thinking, some soul searching. I did. I was in deep thought. I was thinking about our, I could see it in your face.

I didn't want to interrupt you. The Christmas special, you know, I went with Christmas vacation and we were talking about favorite Christmas movie slash special slash anything on video. Yeah. Yeah. And I went Christmas vacation, but I regret that because I don't think, I think far and away the best Christmas movie slash special slash cartoon is the Muppet.

It's Christmas Carol. Yeah. Muppets are good. Muppets are good.

I like Charlie Brown's Christmas. I like that. Yeah. Yeah.

Peanuts are good. You get Michael, Michael Caine's performance. He gave us like a grade A performance with the Muppets. Yeah. Yeah. I ain't got a problem with the Muppets, man.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I've got an issue with the Muppets. That's good. But I'm not going to sit here and tell you that's the best thing I've ever seen Christmas related. But you've seen it.

Yeah. But again, it's not my thing. It's I've seen it, but it's not like it's stuck with me, man.

Like I saw it and then I kept on living my life. I felt like Michael Caine gave like a Oscar worthy Scrooge performance. Michael Caine's Michael Caine. Like, yeah. And it's Michael Caine. And Scrooge is good, too.

Scrooge is way up there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially for the years to make it the adults out there. They love that movie.

I love them. And it usually comes like later for some reason. That's not like, you know, you think I elf running like nine times a day.

Scrooge usually shows up like 10 days till Christmas. Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you on that, man.

So as attorneys, where do you where do you fall on Die Hard? A lot of people feel like Die Hard is a Christmas movie. It's not a Christmas movie, man. Not really. I've never seen it. But what? You haven't seen Die Hard.

No, we'll come back to that. You never seen any Die Hards. You ever seen Under Siege? I've seen the Under Siege. Yeah, I've seen Under Siege. You're a Steven Seagal guy.

I see it. I die hard to me. I've tried to watch it at Christmas time and like make it a Christmas movie.

And it just doesn't do it for me. And it's because I think you can enjoy that movie at any any time and any time of the year. It's going to be just as enjoyable to you as opposed to like if to me, if I watch a Christmas movie, like at the wrong time of the year, man, it's like, oh, it gives me the.

But Die Hard I could watch in like March and it's fine, man. Yeah. You can say Yippie-ki-yay and feel good about. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

For sure. It's well, anyway, family law. That's what we've been talking about.

We've been talking about family law. You haven't seen Die Hard, man. I've never seen Die Hard. I've seen a lot of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and that's. Yeah, they reference it a lot. Yeah, they reference it a lot. And I don't like Bruce Willis.

I saw that Bob's Burgers where they reenact it and do like a kid's play. So I feel like I got the gist of it. You don't like you don't like Bruce Willis that much. Not a Bruce Willis guy.

Well, I'm trying to think. I don't think I've just seen a lot of I don't think I've seen a lot of Bruce Willis movies, really. I'm trying to think of something else that I could ask you about, Bruce Willis-wise, because obviously he's been in a ton of movies. I was in the Dead People one. Yeah, he's in Sixth Sense. I saw that one. That was a good movie. The Dead People one. Very different than his role in Die Hard, obviously.

A lot different. Fifth Element, you've seen that one? No. OK. Never mind, man. Never mind.

No Die Hard? That's nuts. So Family Law. Last segment, we had Taylor, one of the attorneys at our firm, join us to talk about child custody in North Carolina in general and just how that kind of works. Kind of give us an overarching answer to a lot of questions that we get. And we get a ton of questions on post-separation support, alimony and child support. Those are all three different different things that happen at three different times that for for three different reasons. So, you know, it's it causes a lot of questions. I think there's some confusion out there in the general public about when, you know, when child support's awarded, what they look at versus what they look at for post-separation support, which is the time you're separated before you can get a divorce in North Carolina. Obviously, after divorce, there's alimony conversations.

So three different things. We get a lot of questions. And again, we we went back to Taylor to ask her about this and then get some explanation on how those are calculated.

Just again, a good general knowledge base to start maybe asking more complex questions. But here's what Taylor told us. All right, Taylor, I had another one for you. All right.

All right. Another listener question based in Family Law. And again, I'm taking a listener question.

I'm kind of boiling it down to a general question that might be more helpful for for folks who might be listening. But the general question I have for you, we all have heard in the movies, you hear alimony, right? You hear you hear about alimony after a divorce in North Carolina. Of course, you have to be separated for a year and a day to to to get a divorce. And during that time, you're separated. In theory, you're living apart from your spouse. You've made a decision to separate.

You guys are living separate and you have a year and a day of that separation period. And so North Carolina, we have something called post separation support. And so our question today is, what is post separation support? How does that work? That's the gist of the question.

All right. Well, post separation support is essentially money given by a supporting spouse to a dependent spouse during that year long separation. It's money that's kind of given for immediate access, immediate resources to make sure somebody is not left destitute during the separation period. And post separation support terminates once alimony is decided. So whether it's alimony is denied or alimony is granted. Either way, once alimony is decided, post separation support ends.

Follow up question, then how is post separation support determined? So post separation support is determined kind of similar to alimony. You have to have one spouse that is the supporting spouse, which typically is the one that was the primary breadwinner during the marriage. You have the other spouse who was dependent upon them, which means they relied on that person's income for their livelihood. And the supporting spouse has to have the ability to pay. So that's the one you see attack the most is whether or not the supporting spouse actually has the ability to pay. But that's kind of the framework of how post separation support is determined and how you can even make a claim. You've got to have at least those three things. And then it's a matter of how much you're actually entitled to based off of how much the supporting spouse makes.

How is that, without going into a lot of detail, but how is that? Let's assume the judge is able to determine the breadwinning spouse, the dependent spouse. Let's say it's determined that the breadwinning spouse has the ability to pay. Is there like a spreadsheet or an equation? How do you figure out what that amount of money will be?

So there's not an exact equation. There is an exact calculator for child support, but not for post separation support and alimony. So what the court has everybody do is what's called a financial affidavit. And it kind of is a breakdown of what the expenses were during the marriage and what your expenses are now. And it's a way for the court to figure out, OK, if you need this money, how much in the red are you? Like, how much are you behind every month and how much of a surplus does the supporting spouse have that can help contribute to you being in the red?

So it's not an exact calculation, but that's essentially how we try to figure it out is based off of your financial affidavits and how much the bills are. And I think this is important, too, because you were telling me this earlier, but we're talking about a lot of different things. So it's important to remember that post arrest, post separation support, any money for child support and then alimony once divorced. Those are all three separate things that get determined at separate times.

Correct. So post separation support alimony, you kind of see go hand in hand because once alimony is decided, post separation support ends, it kind of merges into alimony. But child support is completely separate and usually child support is deducted first. You want to make sure the kids get the money they need first. So if child support decided to be a certain amount and after that amount, you have no money left for alimony.

Well, then you might not be required to pay alimony anymore. But those are three separate claims. And I think for our listeners, we just want to make sure that's clear, because sometimes they do merge, merge in your mind, because it's money coming out of your paycheck.

But they're three separate claims. Well, Taylor, I think that's a good answer. I appreciate it. No problem. All right.

So Taylor did a good job laying that down for us. The difference between child support, post separation support and alimony, all three different things. It's just like anything else, too. You know, you and your spouse or your soon to be ex spouse can can agree, just like like me and Joseph. We can agree on on anything we want to agree on.

And that's always the best. You're not always getting along. Obviously, you're in the middle of separating or divorce, so you're not always getting along and maybe not always dealing with the most, you know, people at their their most reasonable. But you leave it to a judge.

You're going to get what the judge wants you to get, according to guidelines in North Carolina, or, you know, you can negotiate and try to try to come to some separation agreement. All these things can be agreed to. When you say, Joseph, it's one of the we always talk about trying to keep the way I always look at it is trying to keep the government out of my personal affairs to the extent that you're able to. Sometimes it's not your call. Yeah.

Keep them off your lawn, man, if you can. We talk about that in state. We talk we talk about that in a state planning every aspect of life.

Like the less governmental interference you have is generally going to be better. Right. You know, as as an. Yeah.

Yeah. As an attorney, you know, when we represent anybody in any area, we're trying to make everything easy for you, especially if we're doing planning. We're trying to to get you out of having, you know, anytime you have to go in front of a judge, even though there's guidelines, you don't know exactly what that judge is going to do. You know, if you agree to things ahead of time, you'll you'll know what to expect. You know what you're working with. And like I said, going to court's no fun, right?

Family court is just like any other type of court. It's not it's it's it's a last resort, in my opinion. It's there and it's it's necessary. Sometimes there's nothing you can do if the other side is unreasonable. But, you know, we we tried to hit knowing it's a necessary evil is the thing that has to happen.

But trying to plan around it and avoid it is always going to be, you know, a good attorney's part of a good attorney's advice, I think. It's a tough subject. And, you know, they I remember back when we were engaged before we got married, we had meetings with Catholic priests.

We talked about percentages of divorce, how many marriages ended up in divorce, having those types of conversations. And, you know, you hear it all the time. I mean, it's a 55. I mean, I don't know what the exact number is right now. You guys probably might know the number, but it's over 50 percent of marriages end in divorce at some point. So it's a family law is a big, big deal. I know that, you know, listeners out there like, wow, wow, family law, really?

I go, yeah, yeah, it's very, very important. If you've got questions in and around family law and you've got and you need some answers, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. The number is 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. Again, any legalese and they'll have an attorney return that call and give you some answers to those questions. You can also email your questions to the show info at JudicaCounty.com and we'll answer them on a future broadcast.

All right. So Judica County radio will take a short break. We're back on the other side. Welcome back into Judica County radio. Your hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer managing partners, Whitaker and Hamer law firm, practicing attorneys here in North Carolina and offices conveniently located in Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Fuquay Varina, Gastonia, and down at the coast, Moorhead City. If you've got a legal situation you're facing and you need answers to those questions, you can always call the firm 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact information briefly what the call is about. And again, an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show info at JudicaCounty.com. That's info at JudicaCounty.com and we will answer those questions on a future program.

It will be anonymous, but you will get your information that way. All right. Our hosts are Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer.

I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. I chuckle because we are now, you know, in the course of our recording, we're doing video too. You're not seeing that on the radio, but I am seeing what looks like Gandalf with a red toboggan on. Nice, nice, nice look. Young Santa Claus.

Look how I'm going for it. So that is, yeah, Joseph has taken a, I don't know what you call them, but they go on the back of seats. They give the seat like a Christmassy look, but he is taking that and converted it to a large hat. Yeah, you got to have a big head to pull this off, man. Luckily, I've got a gigantic side. It looks good.

It's almost like a Jawa from Star Wars. It's warm too, man. It's very warm.

Like I feel like my brain is heating up and I've got so much power to answer these these listener questions. Very, very, very festive. Yes, I'm the only one festive.

You guys have nothing Christmas on, man. You know, you strike me, Joshua, as the type of person whose favorite holiday is like St. Patrick's Day or something like that. You know, I do like St. Patrick's Day. It is quite a fun day.

Now that you mention it. I think I have to revert back to Thanksgiving. I think Thanksgiving is probably my favorite.

Because it lets you know Christmas is right around the corner? Well, I don't mind. I don't mind helping. I'm not going to say I do all the cooking by any means or even like half the cooking, but I enjoy cooking, right? And then family gets together. It's one day. No one's really usually at least around my my way traveling too much. And I like getting right back to work, man.

I don't like a lot of work. What about number two then? Number two Christmas? No. Yes.

It would have to be like what's left? Halloween. You got Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. St. Patty's Day. New Year's Eve. You know, New Year's Eve. New Year's Eve.

Yeah. Christmas is definitely a close second to Thanksgiving, I would think. So Thanksgiving, huh? Thanksgiving's good, man. I can see it's like one it's like one era for me, man.

I can't even. They're inseparable. It's like starts with Thanksgiving and it ends with Christmas.

And then there's a dark period of depression. I do think Thanksgiving and Christmas should be spread out. So like Thanksgiving is like maybe like right before the summertime, right? Yeah. Yeah. They are too close.

Way too close. It's too much time off. Too many people completely like I don't have that ability. There's no I can't just check out like that or, you know, things would go to go to crap.

But but some people really do manage to save up their vacation. Yeah. And completely check out. We should do, man. Just check out.

Let the robots run the show. And we just go off somewhere. But it's you know, I just saw it behind you.

So I'm the way we're set up. I can see out of I can see in the downtown Garner. And there's train tracks right there. And I train just went by, but I didn't have Polar Express.

No, I wish I wish. Another good movie. Another good movie, by the way. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it creeped me out.

Tom Hanks playing like every role, basically. They were is carrying tanks. Oh, so instead of cars, it was carrying tanks, which I'm assuming is a normal thing. Christmas tanks on their way to Fort Liberty, no doubt. Santa, I would like an actual tank for real legitimate.

Please give me a tank. That's what I'm going to pull up to the studio in next week. All right. Well, we've been we've been focusing on family law listener questions today.

And our next listener question, I got to pull it up. Hey, what did you cook for Thanksgiving? I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to derail you.

We did. You know, I don't want to we I want what did you specifically cook? Brisket. Yes, that sounds delicious, man.

Brisket. Yeah. The good thing about smoking stuff the day before is you can wrap it up. Yep. And you let it rest. And then if something like I like we had we had an oven mishap like 15 years ago.

Right. And our oven, the little filament burned out and you couldn't replace it. We were like halfway through a turkey.

And what do you do, man? You lose a turkey. Yeah, stuff like we it's like you can go get another turkey at that point. Right. And you're not going to you're not going to fix your fix your oven. So so I get real paranoid now if we're going to host an event, we usually smoke something the day before. Good idea. And if we're doing turkey or ham the day of you have something goes wrong.

Hey, man, I'm still sitting on this brisket. Yeah. Yeah. That's a veteran move, man. We've given a lot of like we don't give a veteran move after a catastrophe. We got to have a backup plan.

Yeah, that's a great plan. Like you had to go through some hard times to learn that. And you're giving us that knowledge now.

So we don't have to have the same suffering. And you know, it's great. And if you have too much food, like, you know, you just you just got brisket and turkey. Yeah. Oh, God, I've got all this brisket.

What am I going to do? Yeah. The how about you guys? I cooked a lot of stuff, man. I cooked some some some mac and cheese, some cookies, some delicious. I made iced oatmeal cookies like the kind you would buy from the store over there. Homemade. Unbelievable, man.

It's the best thing. Maybe the best thing I've ever made. And what else did I make, man?

I made more than that. Sweet potato casserole. Smoked a turkey. Just a lot of stuff, man. You know, you know, I'm I'm eating a lot. I'm trying to get my mass up. You've told me that.

Yeah. Man, I jump started on Thanksgiving. Like I easily took six to seven years off of my I was I was down. Was I in Clayton? I can't remember where I was, but I ran into somebody and I guess they had like, have you seen how gigantic?

I need to do an intervention. He asked me how he asked me if you were still doing ice baths. I see it.

I guess he had heard that. Really? Yeah. And I guess I was like, you know, I don't I don't think Joseph's on the ice bath.

No, man. This body's not fit in an ice bath. He's on the ice cream bath. Yeah. Ice cream. Ice cream.

So good. Look, man, I'm telling you, I don't use I don't use a scale. I don't I don't ever weigh myself. You just go by feel. I feel you put on your you put on your party dress if it fits great. Right.

Yeah, it's awesome. And my clothes are getting pretty, pretty snug. It was about to be a problem.

I don't know, man. People may like that. People may enjoy seeing more of you busted out of the seams. And I cut out. I was doing too much lunch, man. It was lunch that was getting me.

So I cut out lunch and I've been doing that for a couple of weeks. And that seems to be I got these things, man. I don't know if you've heard of them.

They're called cinnamon rolls. Have you heard of those? Yeah. Is that your thing?

I've been trying those. Everything's my thing, man. It's a slippery slope for me. I have like one bite of a cinnamon roll.

And then it's like, well, might as well die tomorrow. The whole tray. I'll eat everything. Anything and everything, man. How about you, Morgan? You do a lot of cooking Thanksgiving.

Is that your role or do you get to step back? No, it's a little bit of a different setup because, you know, my better half is vegetarian. And I also spend Thanksgiving with my folks. They're up in the mountains. So I run up the hill and spend the day with my parents. And usually that that includes stopping off at the Daniel Boone Inn in Boone. And they do Thanksgiving to go.

So there's less hassle. My folks, you know, just let them relax and enjoy some good old country cooking for Thanksgiving. And, you know, hats off to the Daniel Boone Inn, man. They're open all the time.

They do a ton of business. Isn't that place haunted? Yeah, it's one of the haunted places in Boone. There's several, but I shouldn't say several. There are probably hundreds. Shut up Daniel Boone Inn, man.

Yeah, it's just good food. Have you seen have you guys seen any more of the child ghosts? Yeah, in the Clayton office?

No, man. I thought I heard him this morning. I walked in pretty early, but it was just somebody like dumping trash outside. I can't remember. So our Clayton office is, I always called it the yellow house in Clayton, but that's our Clayton office.

That's where we. It is yellow. Is it a documented ghost or are you guys. Is it a documented ghost in this office? Yeah, we've talked about it on the radio show.

That's documented, right? So we didn't bring the ghost hunters or anything out to do like a EKG or whatever they do to figure out if there's a ghost there. But yeah, it's it's definitely haunted. You seem like you got lost in thought.

It's jealous. Your office doesn't have a ghost. No, no, our offices.

Let's see. The Garner office was built in what? Oh, one and the Raleigh office was built in the 90s.

You got to have some kind of tragedy. Now we're, you know, we're in Shady's today and Shady's was built like 1908. This place is definitely and it was a prison, too.

It was a it was a courthouse and I had two of the bathrooms where the holding cells, right? Yes. This place is. Yeah.

Some nights here in the dark and it's going to get it's going to be a little iffy, a little bit iffy. So Judica County radio question. Yeah, we were just saying, Morgan, we did make it to our question, so I'll have to do it next. We'll do that.

All right. Judica County radio. We'll take a short break and we'll wrap up the show on the other side. Listen, if you have a legal situation that you are facing and you need answers to those questions, you can always call Whitaker and Hamer. Eight hundred six five nine one one eight six.

That's eight hundred six five nine eleven eighty six. Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch and you can email your questions to the show info at Judica County dot com. And we will answer those questions on a future broadcast.

All right. We're going to take that short break here and we'll be back on the other side with more Judica County. Welcome back into Judica County radio, your host, Josh Whitaker and Joe Hamer. You can find him at Whitaker and Hamer law firm offices located Raleigh, Garner, Clayton, Goldsboro, Cuckray, Varina, Gastonia and Morehead City. Again, Whitaker and Hamer, the power behind Judica County radio. I'm Morgan Patrick, consumer advocate. We got through a question and answer. So now we're going to shift gears and it's a big topic, guys, for the state of North Carolina.

That is sports gambling. And hello, it is here. Did you know? Yeah. Did you know if Chris Farley was alive, he'd be 60 years old. Do you know that? That that's is that right. That's how I just I saw I was during the break here, I was just looking and somebody said it was like Valentine's Day or the day after.

But he turned he wouldn't be 60 years old, 60 years old. What's your favorite Farley skit if you have one or a moment in the movies? Mm hmm. That's I didn't prepare for this. I don't know, man. You brought it up, Josh.

You brought it up. I'm a huge Farley fan. I think I could easily go to Tommy Boy, but go ahead. I've got one. Well, I think if you're just go on top of the I mean, the top the top two or it's fat guy in a little coat or the motivational speaker.

I mean, those are the top. There's plenty of others. I got I got one that might slide in there.

Slide it in, man. Saturday Night Live. Both of the main characters are now no longer with us. It is the Chippendales tryout with Patrick Swayze and Farley.

And I have I think I you know, I cried a little bit. I laughed so hard. This is the one he's he's classic. Well, you know, if you watch all the if you read all the books and stuff that that his family or his brothers wrote, there's one that's it's not the Farley show.

There's there's a book that came out and it's it's it's not in like time order, but it's like just different stories about him from different people and his brothers have a lot in there because he's got two brothers that are fledgling standup comedians. But that's the skit that they that broke him, right? Because that's the skit that guy was like real physical and made a big deal about his weight. And they said that's the one they wish he had never done it like he was different the day after that skit. That's all your fault, Morgan. I don't want to bring you down, Morgan, but that's that's what they blame is like it. Morgan ran into him and was like that skit. That was the that was the apex.

Yeah, that's where he that's where he peaked. But my my kids love that. My kids, they like fat guy in a little coat. I mean, they're big does it, man? If you don't like that, then I think we there's some things man that are just universal.

That's what I think a lot of us have been fat at some point and a lot of it right now. I'm just saying I'm just saying and we put coats on and they don't quite fit. And you immediately go to that skit and you start singing.

And I get people sending me that stuff all the time. I mean, it's like every outfit I put on. Yeah, that's why I still like man. I still like suits to this day. I think I'll go my whole life. I could wear a suit every day for the rest of my life and suits will still be uncomfortable, even if they, you know, even if they fit perfectly because when I was a kid growing up, man, church clothes.

Imagine being like being like, yeah, they make they make it try. I never you know, I've got I know a lot of attorneys were you know, even if they're not in court, they were like, if I'm not in court, you might see me in a suit. But they wear suits every day.

I was like, God bless you. It looks very professional. I'm sure your clients appreciate it. Come over to our office. It's sweatpants, baby.

It's very unrelatable. If you don't look at me and say, are you really an attorney? Then I don't feel like I've done that job.

I'm here to see the attorney. Look, that's the only good thing that came out of the pandemic was like relaxed professional attire kind of across the board. I went into the pandemic. Relax. So you can imagine I was just ahead of the curve, shirtless with a backwards hat on. You were like the old Will Ferrell skit, right? The casual day.

It comes in in his American thong. My office would not. That's that's not a way to increase product.

There would be a lawsuit, I would imagine. We're supposed to be talking about sports betting, man. So you're ready? It's March Madness, right? So I'll probably. Yeah.

Yes. I have a hard time betting against. I just ended up betting on NC State basketball. I'll take the line or I won't take the line. And that's not a winning strategy, brother.

No, it's terrible. That's why I haven't done it. And I always do some bets at the Super Bowl.

I lose them all the time. It's like that Family Guy clip where Peter goes up and he's going to bet and he just puts the money on the table. And he's like, I'd like to place a bet. And the guy's like, all right, what do you want to bet on?

He's like, you just keep the money. I just wanted to make a bet on something, you know, but I don't expect to win. You know, bet is fun.

You are to it being legal. Oh, yeah. Come on, brother.

What do you what are you talking about? Of course I was. And then I was down because that's what happens when you bet. Yeah, it's a roller coaster.

Yeah. Well, you know, I've been way up, man. I've had some good times. You know, that was it. It was the best of times.

It was the worst of times. It's about me betting. Well, you know, I think the March Madness like that'll be fun this year because you can pretend like you're in Vegas, right? You just sit and I'll go sit in Shady's and watch all the games. And so are you telling me that Shady's is going to be the official betting location of March Madness?

Is that what you're telling me? For me, for me and anybody who's going to hang out with me. I'll be there with you, man. Let's just let's just make some poor decisions, man. Let's do it live on the radio. We have to small amounts, though. Small amounts, guys.

Yeah. Our next our next our next show will be The Firm is Closed Down. We we we lost the firm betting, but we had a good time doing it in North Carolina.

We have fun because you're always having fun until you're not, you know, so that's when you just go home. I recommend since betting's new, it's legal. There's going to be a lot of people betting that haven't bet before. And my advice to you is going to be just just place bets that win. It's that simple.

Find the good ones. Yeah, it's as easy as that. Just do the ones that win. And if you can put like 15 of those together in one parlay, that would really. Well, see, that's what gets you, man. I'm very good at putting together like a 75 percent good parlay. It's that 25 percent, man.

Or even just that one that gets you. Yeah. Well, we got to do something really weird, though, like my kids have been following lacrosse because they're they're big Buffalo Bandits fans. Who's not? Aren't we all?

Yeah. So we just have to get bandits. We only bet on lacrosse and hockey. That's all we that's all I bet on. I've bet on I've bet on some things, man.

I don't even want to tell you. I bet on some things they got. You can go bet on like Chinese basketball games that are happening like right now with teams you've never heard of.

That's possible. It's a thing to do. Not saying I would. You can bet on people playing video games right now, playing against each other in NBA 2K. You can go bet on it right now. That seems risky. It's a little bit.

A little bit. All right, guys. Well, Judah County radio, another version in the books. And we had a lot of fun again, sports betting. We got into the Trump fraud case earlier in the program. And of course, Q&A, if you've got a legal situation you're facing, you need some answers to questions. You could always call Whitaker and Hamer, 800-659-1186. That's 800-659-1186.

Leave your contact info briefly what the call is about. And an attorney with Whitaker and Hamer will be in touch. And you can email your questions to the show. We'll answer them on a future broadcast. Info at judicacounty.com. Again, another edition of Judah County radio in the books. Josh, Joe, I'm Morgan. We'll see you on the radio next week. The broadcast is speaking in generalities about the law in North Carolina and how these laws affect the average North Carolinian. If you have any questions about the content of this show, you can direct such inquiry to Joshua Whitaker at JMW at mwhlaw.lawyer.