Man Claims He Converted $500K Life Savings Into Gold Then Dumped It in Landfill to Spite Wife in Divorce Battle
A Colorado couple's divorce battle took a twisted turn when the wife's 52-year-old husband claimed he converted their $500,000 life savings into gold and then dumped it all in a local landfill.
"Damn right I did," said the woman's husband, Earl Ray Jones of Teller County in a July deposition by his wife's divorce attorney, John-Paul Lyle of Colorado Springs, according to The Gazette.
Jones claimed in a transcript of the deposition that he disposed of the family fortune, loaded into 22 pounds of gold, in a dumpster behind a Colorado Springs motel.
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"We say that when people are divorcing, they enter a state of temporary insanity," he noted in the transcript. "But on a scale of one to 10, this is my 10."
He told Lyle that he had wanted to withdraw the money in cash but bank tellers wouldn't allow it.
"If that would have been an option, I would have been walking around giving people $100 bills," Jones said.
The former defense contractor who was married to his wife, April, for 25 years, said he did not record his disposal of the gold and claims he was the only witness. He provided bank records showing that he converted the money into gold through a Phoenix, Ariz., precious metals dealer.
Before heading to divorce court, the couple's relationship was strained by physical and verbal altercations over finances and other issues, and the latest blow-up landed Jones in jail.
On Nov. 4, he is expected to be sentenced for menacing after he allegedly beat up his wife then held her captive in their home during a March fight over money.
Three weeks after the alleged assault, April filed for divorce. Shortly afterward, Jones resigned from his $82,000 a year job at Exelis, a Colorado Springs contractor, according to court records.
Jones reportedly first claimed that he dumped the gold during a June divorce hearing in which El Paso County Magistrate D. Denise Peacock ordered that he pay April $3,000 a month. She still hasn't received a penny and is reportedly "destitute."
April, a former teacher, is reportedly unable to work because of the lingering effects of her injuries, including a diagnosis of post-concussion syndrome.
