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When he came from his cell to meet them, Brian assumed the brotherhood had come to settle his affairs and help get him out. They hadn’t. “I asked, well, are you guys going to cash in the life insurance? ‘Nope.’ Are you going to change the directorship? ‘Nope.’ So why are you here then? ‘We wanted to come and see you,’” he said of the jailhouse visit. “I don’t know what they came in to do, to tell you the honest truth.”

This past May, with Brian out of jail, the estranged couple were again in court. In the empty public gallery they sat as far apart as the seats allowed. In a repeat of a year ago, Brian was again asked by Ricchetti if he had satisfied his court orders and again Brian had not.

Found to still be in contempt of court, Ricchetti gave him time to make amends before sentencing him a second time. During a court break, Brian overheard a lawyer for Seasons asking to meet privately with Barbara’s lawyer. Brian threw up his hands in apparent dismay. “They’re trying to cut me out,” he muttered. The brotherhood seems broken.

Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Barbara, meanwhile, frets about the sisterhood. “I know this is an absurd situation. And I would hate to think that any other woman would have to go through this,” she said. On paper, Blatherwick v. Blatherwick is a triumph for her. The reality, she said, is despite the enormous judgment she is back working in a retail store, like she was in the early years of her marriage, earning a little more than minimum wage.

“I have a 200-page court document that says I have an entitlement to a settlement, but until Brian is willing to write a cheque, I have nothing. I haven’t won anything. I’ve lost more. I’ve lost everything.”