Take, for example, a May 2023 interrogatory that asked Wade to disclose any sexual relations he had during his marriage, including during the “time of separation” and “up to the present.” In his interrogatory response at that time, Wade answered “none.” But on the stand last week, Wade acknowledged that he had engaged in sexual relations with Willis by May 2023. In explaining his response to the interrogatory, Wade maintained that his marriage was “irretrievably broken” in 2015 and, as such, he did not have a relationship with anyone during the course of his marriage. But that explanation does not account for the fact that the interrogatory asked for conduct during the “time of separation” and “up to the present.” As one Georgia family law attorney told us: “Wade’s ‘definition’ of the end of his marriage being when it was irretrievably broken years ago is legal bullshit.”
There are similar problems with other interrogatories in the divorce proceedings. In the May 2023 interrogatory, for example, Wade was asked to identify “any and all” occasions in which he entertained a member of the opposite sex “from date of marriage to the present.” Wade again answered “none.” Confronted with this interrogatory by defense counsel last week, Wade agreed that he had “entertained” Willis in May 2023. But he insisted on a strained interpretation of the question posed, claiming that he did not entertain anyone during the “course of the marriage”—a qualifying phrase that appears nowhere in the question or Wade’s response.