Lose the husband, keep the money? Judges rule in Palm Beach couple's 'insane' breakup

WEST PALM BEACH — Abe Haruvi is unhappily married and doing everything he can to stay that way.

He and Giovana Stephenson aren't your typical quarrelsome couple. The Palm Beach spouses trade insults across courtrooms and would sooner pay a celebrity lawyer to settle their disputes than a marriage counselor. Each move, carefully orchestrated and handsomely funded, pushes the couple one step closer toward ending their relationship — in principle, but not on paper.

Both have a $60 million incentive to stay married, thanks to what one lawyer called the most "insane" prenuptial agreement he's ever seen. With Stephenson unwilling to forfeit the money, she's enlisted attorneys to find other ways to break up their marriage.

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A judge in West Palm Beach squashed her latest attempt in July, denying an unusual request for alimony and child support from a man to whom she is still married. Stephenson has vowed to appeal the decision while fending off a countersuit from her husband. He wants her to pay for accusing him of abuse his lawyer says never happened.

"There's got to be some kind of accountability for what has happened to me," Haruvi said.

Husband says prenup poisoned Palm Beach couple's relationship

Stephenson accused her husband of domestic battery in 2021, launching the first of several legal battles with the couple's children, money and real estate at stake. Haruvi was court-ordered to stay out of the home and away from his children while authorities investigated Stephenson's claims that he scratched her during a fight on Dec. 9, 2021.

Stephenson described her husband as a heavy drinker who was both physically and emotionally cruel, but Haruvi's lawyer said she made up the allegations to cash in on the couple's prenuptial agreement.

Woven into the marital contract is a penalty clause. If Haruvi cheats on Stephenson, abuses her or just wants to be single again, she gets the couple’s $50 million house and another $10 million in cash and assets. If he doesn't, and she divorces him anyway, the $60 million package disappears.

"You will never see a case like this again," said Haruvi's lawyer, Jeff Fisher. "It's a unicorn."

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While the domestic battery case made its way through criminal court, Stephenson filed a separate action in civil court seeking to keep Haruvi out of their waterside mansion and away from their kids indefinitely. Stephenson enlisted their 9-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter to write letters to the judge describing bruises on their mother's arm and concerning behavior from their father.

"My dad screams at her a lot for no reason, always gaslights her and calls her really horrible things," the eldest child wrote. "He also cancels her credit card whenever he wants to threaten her."

Two Palm Beach County judges and one jury side with husband against wife

Circuit Judge Melanie Surber refused Stephenson's request to make the temporary restraining order against Haruvi permanent in March 2022, citing the wife's "ever-changing" testimony. A jury acquitted her husband of the domestic battery charge next, though Stephenson argued in her latest lawsuit that her allegations alone meant that her husband had breached the terms of their prenuptial agreement.

Neither that nor her request for alimony and child support on the grounds that Haruvi doesn't support the lavish lifestyle Stephenson is accustomed to were successful.

"This is not a case where the husband financially or otherwise abandoned the wife and children, nor is it a case where he has failed to provide them with support," wrote Circuit Court Judge Darren Shull. "Rather, the husband initially was forced out of his home ... based upon a claim of domestic battery by the wife which she was unable to prove by either a clear and convincing evidence in the domestic violence injunction hearing, or beyond a reasonable doubt in the criminal case."

Haruvi has accused his wife of malicious prosecution in a separate suit and is seeking more than $1 million in damages. Still, he hasn't given up hope that the pair might mend their relationship before they end it. They were once in love, after all.

"I truly believe time can heal all," he said.

There's $60 million on the line if it doesn't.

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Abe Haruvi, Giovana Stephenson Palm Beach divorce, prenup details