Hilary Duff’s dad sent to jail for contempt of court in family hearing


Hilary Duff’s mom, Susan, took her former husband Bob Duff to court near Houston, Texas yesterday in an attempt to get him to plunk down an additional $25,000 in child support to pay for Hilary’s 21st birthday party. Bob pays $10,000 a month in child support for his daughters Hilary, 20, and Haylie, 23, despite the fact that both young women are successful and live in their own home in LA together. Their mother also lives in LA while he remains in Houston. Hilary is already a millionaire in her own right, with a net worth estimated at $25 million. Susan wanted another $25k for Hilary’s birthday, because that’s how much Haylie’s party cost and she thought that was perfectly reasonable. $10k a month only goes so far, and Susan says she is reduced to borrowing from her richer daughters to pay her bills.

The courtroom got pretty heated between the lawyers for both sides. It sounds like Bob got contempt of court for disobeying court orders, though, not for an outburst. He sold some of his stocks even though he’s not supposed to sell assets and was ordered to pay his earnings of $367,537 to the court and led out in handcuffs. Bob was sentenced to 10 days in jail, but can presumably meet bail and should be out soon. As if all those penalties and jail time weren’t enough, he’ll also have to pay $12,500 to his ex wife, half the cost of the planned birthday party for Hilary:

Stansbury eventually ordered Bob to pay $12,500 to Susan for Hilary’s birthday.

Bob took another hit when Stansbury ordered him to spend 10 days in jail for contempt of court. He is accused of violating an injunction against selling assets without court approval and must pay $367,537 he earned from selling stocks last month into a court repository.

Piro said his client plans to post bond as soon as possible and file an appeal.

At the end of the hearing, deputies fingerprinted Bob and led him away in handcuffs. When Susan saw the deputies click the cuffs on her husband, she gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” she murmured.

[From The Houston Chronicle via TMZ]

That sounds like a particularly harsh judge. Is it normal procedure to send someone to jail for selling stocks in violation of an injuction? You would think that making him fork over that insane amount of cash would be penalty enough.

There’s also the whole issue of the parents having to pay for Hilary’s birthday. She’s doing fine on her own and she’s been sporting what looks like an engagement ring from her boyfriend, hockey player Mike Comrie, who is also a multi-millionaire. He could easily pay for Hilary’s party if she doesn’t want to foot the bill. Instead, her mother insisted her dad pay for it and he got hauled off to jail during the court proceedings. Whatever party she does have will be marred by what happened to her dad.

Hilary Duff’s song Gypsy Woman, released Spring, 2007, is about her dad’s affair while he was still married to her mom. Hilary blamed the woman for breaking up her family in both the song and her statements about it.

Hilary and Haylie Duff are shown at the 1408 premiere on 6/13/07. Credit: Juan Rico/Fame Pictures

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

11 Responses to “Hilary Duff’s dad sent to jail for contempt of court in family hearing”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Jess Doherty says:

    You have got to be freaking kidding me!!

  2. lalala land says:

    He needs a new lawyer!!! Who pays CHILD support for 20 & 23 year-olds!! Sounds like Mom needs to get a job!! :mrgreen:

  3. princess says:

    I really hope that there is more to this story.
    Her father must make a lot for a living for the child support to be so high. Otherwise he has been seriously railroaded by the system. In most states it is based on your yearly income.
    Sounds a little vindictive to make him pay for half the party. If you can afford to throw a 20K party…you should be able to pay for it yourself.
    It sounds like from this article that he cheated and that they are now making pay.

  4. Bodhi says:

    Wow, what kind of spoiled bitches need $25k for a freaking birthday party? Thats more than my student loan!

    These people don’t need more money OR to go to jail, every last one of them needs a serious dose of reality

  5. vdantev says:

    Uh Hill is a freaking millionaire and needs Daddy to pay for her 21st birthday party? WTF? Seriously- WTF?

  6. McKenna says:

    Wait…I don’t understand how he is paying CHILD support for adults. In what world are a 20 and 23 year old children. And if the mother is complaining that she has to borrow from her daughters? How does that make sense that she’s borrowing from her rich daughters to support them? sounds like the 10K is going towards supporting her lazy ass. It’s things like this that make women look bad. Just because the guy cheated doesn’t mean he has to pay for the rest of his life.

  7. Mavis says:

    The Houston Chronicle article doesn’t mention that this is a *child* support obligation. I’m betting that it’s a spousal support hearing, since I’ve never heard of an adult child who wasn’t permanently disabled still receiving child support. (I used to do child support enforcement for a living.) (And I wouldn’t go back to it for all the tea in China.) I’m guessing that the divorce agreement binds Bob to help Mom out with extraordinary expenses that are child-related, but that it’s not actually child support.

  8. OXA says:

    Why are they in family court fighting about adult children and what is this judge smoking? A gift is given freely not court ordered.

  9. huh says:

    I could see child support if they were over 18 and full time students or something but otherwise WTH? Unless it is alimony in which case that makes sense… but not insofar as paying for a totally unnecessary party for a millionaire.

    And don’t celebs always get companies to pay for their parties? I thought they never paid for their own parties, a lot less famous people than Hilary Duff have had their bdays paid for. And paid the celeb for the “opportunity” to throw their bday.

  10. Melanie says:

    umm…for the record my dad only paid $25 a WEEK in child support for me. that’s $5 a day….in other words….lunch money in high school

  11. Sharon Stone says:

    First, Mrs Duff helped build a business worth over $280,000,000, that’s right two hundred eighty million! Mr Duff is very wealthy with family money on top of that, they have been married 25 years, why shouldn’t they pay for their daughters birthday party (21st)? No excuse for cheating, why should he get all and the children have to pay????