MJMANDALAY
02-17-2007, 01:17 PM
During his 10-year marriage, New Jersey Nets star Jason Kidd had numerous extramarital affairs, gambled and drank excessively, and treated his wife like a punching bag, taunting her while she suffered and cried, according to court papers filed yesterday by his estranged wife, Joumana.
In an angry, 27-page response to the divorce complaint her husband filed last month, Joumana Kidd describes a marriage from hell, shattering the image of domestic bliss the couple carefully tended during the six seasons Kidd, 33, has played for the Nets.
During home games at the Continental Airlines Arena, Kidd blew kisses to his wife from the foul line as the glamorous Joumana looked on from her courtside seats, flashing large diamonds and tending to at least one of the couple's three children.
But in private, Joumana Kidd asserts in papers filed in Superior Court in Hackensack, her husband acted like a sadistic monster, choking her, hitting her in the forehead with a candlestick and kicking her in the stomach. Though he expressed remorse and even repugnance at his actions at times, telling her, "I'm sick. I know I need professional help," the NBA all-star physically and emotionally abused her for years, Joumana Kidd alleges.
"Many times, he would smirk and say in an unsympathetic way, 'You may want to get that looked at,'" the claim states of Joumana Kidd's bruises and injuries.
In January 2001, while playing for the Phoenix Suns, Kidd pleaded guilty to spousal abuse after an argument with his wife and underwent mandatory counseling. During the next year, Joumana Kidd now says, the marriage was fine. But in 2003, she claims, the violence began anew, when, while traveling on a plane, he hurled a "large cookie" at her. The violence, she says, continued until he moved out late last year.
Joumana Kidd also charges her husband was an unrepentant womanizer who had sexual relationships with a number of women, including TV reporters, exotic dancers and a woman she identifies as "the sister of a teammate's then-girlfriend."
Before he and Joumana married in Phoenix in 1997, Kidd had a son out of wedlock with another woman. But in the papers, Joumana Kidd alleges, he also had a daughter, whose existence he never mentioned until they had been married a year.
Joumana Kidd's counterclaim for divorce seeks primary custody of the couple's three children, alimony, child support and an equitable distribution of property acquired during the marriage.
Jason Kidd's attorney, Madeline Marzano-Lesnevich of Hackensack, called Joumana Kidd's claims "retaliatory and gratuitously nasty."
"It contains a fantastical array of information that is exaggerated, manipulated or just plain fabricated," she told the Associated Press.
The public mudslinging began Jan. 9, when Kidd filed for divorce, alleging he was the repeated victim of extreme cruelty and abuse at the hands of his wife.
He claimed Joumana planted a tracking device on his car and computer and used their 8-year-old son, T.J., to smuggle his cell phone out of his locker room. She also threatened to ruin him with phony domestic violence complaints and taunted him from courtside at the Continental Arena last December, his petition claims.
Yesterday, Joumana Kidd fired back. In her filing, the former Budweiser model gave an extremely different account of their 10-year marriage.
In addition to the beatings and chokings she claims he inflicted on her, Joumana Kidd said she found photos of naked and partially clothed women on her husband's prepaid cell phone and that she called numbers found on the phone and reached his girlfriends.
She also accuses him of disappearing for days at a time with no reasonable explanation and traveling to Atlantic City around January 2004 with "the sister of a teammate's girlfriend."
In March 2004, she claims, Kidd bought her a $585,000 pink diamond ring "to apologize for his infidelity." Three months later, he bought her a $555,000 diamond pendant, "again as a means to apologize for adultery and physical abuse," her claim states.
Joumana Kidd describes a series of beatings she says began just before the couple married and continued throughout the union. In one case, she said, her husband beat her about the arms with a baseball bat and in other incidents, he kicked her in the stomach and threw a rock at her face, striking her in an arm she raised in defense.
Kidd is averaging 14.3 points per game this season for the Nets, who are 25-29 and trail the Toronto Raptors by 4 1/2 games in the Eastern Division of the Atlantic Conference. The 6-foot 4-inch guard has a $99 million, six-year contract with the Nets.
He recently moved out of the couple's Saddle River mansion and into an apartment in the same town.
Joumana Kidd's attorney, Raoul Felder, said his client tried but failed to have the contents of the divorce papers sealed, in order to protect her kids.
"She is sad that it had to come to this, and she is disappointed that it could not have been handled in a more gracious and private manner," Felder said in a statement.
In an angry, 27-page response to the divorce complaint her husband filed last month, Joumana Kidd describes a marriage from hell, shattering the image of domestic bliss the couple carefully tended during the six seasons Kidd, 33, has played for the Nets.
During home games at the Continental Airlines Arena, Kidd blew kisses to his wife from the foul line as the glamorous Joumana looked on from her courtside seats, flashing large diamonds and tending to at least one of the couple's three children.
But in private, Joumana Kidd asserts in papers filed in Superior Court in Hackensack, her husband acted like a sadistic monster, choking her, hitting her in the forehead with a candlestick and kicking her in the stomach. Though he expressed remorse and even repugnance at his actions at times, telling her, "I'm sick. I know I need professional help," the NBA all-star physically and emotionally abused her for years, Joumana Kidd alleges.
"Many times, he would smirk and say in an unsympathetic way, 'You may want to get that looked at,'" the claim states of Joumana Kidd's bruises and injuries.
In January 2001, while playing for the Phoenix Suns, Kidd pleaded guilty to spousal abuse after an argument with his wife and underwent mandatory counseling. During the next year, Joumana Kidd now says, the marriage was fine. But in 2003, she claims, the violence began anew, when, while traveling on a plane, he hurled a "large cookie" at her. The violence, she says, continued until he moved out late last year.
Joumana Kidd also charges her husband was an unrepentant womanizer who had sexual relationships with a number of women, including TV reporters, exotic dancers and a woman she identifies as "the sister of a teammate's then-girlfriend."
Before he and Joumana married in Phoenix in 1997, Kidd had a son out of wedlock with another woman. But in the papers, Joumana Kidd alleges, he also had a daughter, whose existence he never mentioned until they had been married a year.
Joumana Kidd's counterclaim for divorce seeks primary custody of the couple's three children, alimony, child support and an equitable distribution of property acquired during the marriage.
Jason Kidd's attorney, Madeline Marzano-Lesnevich of Hackensack, called Joumana Kidd's claims "retaliatory and gratuitously nasty."
"It contains a fantastical array of information that is exaggerated, manipulated or just plain fabricated," she told the Associated Press.
The public mudslinging began Jan. 9, when Kidd filed for divorce, alleging he was the repeated victim of extreme cruelty and abuse at the hands of his wife.
He claimed Joumana planted a tracking device on his car and computer and used their 8-year-old son, T.J., to smuggle his cell phone out of his locker room. She also threatened to ruin him with phony domestic violence complaints and taunted him from courtside at the Continental Arena last December, his petition claims.
Yesterday, Joumana Kidd fired back. In her filing, the former Budweiser model gave an extremely different account of their 10-year marriage.
In addition to the beatings and chokings she claims he inflicted on her, Joumana Kidd said she found photos of naked and partially clothed women on her husband's prepaid cell phone and that she called numbers found on the phone and reached his girlfriends.
She also accuses him of disappearing for days at a time with no reasonable explanation and traveling to Atlantic City around January 2004 with "the sister of a teammate's girlfriend."
In March 2004, she claims, Kidd bought her a $585,000 pink diamond ring "to apologize for his infidelity." Three months later, he bought her a $555,000 diamond pendant, "again as a means to apologize for adultery and physical abuse," her claim states.
Joumana Kidd describes a series of beatings she says began just before the couple married and continued throughout the union. In one case, she said, her husband beat her about the arms with a baseball bat and in other incidents, he kicked her in the stomach and threw a rock at her face, striking her in an arm she raised in defense.
Kidd is averaging 14.3 points per game this season for the Nets, who are 25-29 and trail the Toronto Raptors by 4 1/2 games in the Eastern Division of the Atlantic Conference. The 6-foot 4-inch guard has a $99 million, six-year contract with the Nets.
He recently moved out of the couple's Saddle River mansion and into an apartment in the same town.
Joumana Kidd's attorney, Raoul Felder, said his client tried but failed to have the contents of the divorce papers sealed, in order to protect her kids.
"She is sad that it had to come to this, and she is disappointed that it could not have been handled in a more gracious and private manner," Felder said in a statement.