After Angelina Jolie requested the disqualification of a judge in her court case with ex-husband Brad Pitt, claims went rife about her wanting to delay the process.
However, the rumours were quashed as a source revealed that the only reason the Salt star was going forth with this was because she was “concerned that something untoward was happening.”
The actor had filed the court papers to get the private judge removed from their case after her lawyer, Samantha Bley DeJean found out that Judge John W. Oudekirk was financially and professionally linked to Pitt’s attorneys Anne C. Kiley and Lance Spiegel which was kept secret.
While the former couple is legally divorced, they still need to settle on child custody and financial issues through the assistance of a private judge.
According to a source cited by Page Six, “Angelina isn’t trying to delay this process. In fact, the court papers state that she wants to get this issue with the judge resolved so there are no further delays [in deciding custody and financial issues like child support].”
According to the papers filed in Los Angeles Supreme Court, there were “matters that Judge Ouderkirk did not ultimately disclose until [Jolie’s] counsel conducted her own inquiry into missing disclosures,” which “left [Jolie] without an … [understanding] of the professional relationship between the judge and [Pitt’s] counsel.”
The filing further states that Jolie’s attorney “on her own initiative, discovered the truth of what should have been disclosed long before.”
Her legal team was informed that from the period of 2012 to 2013, Judge Ouderkirk “had heard a few cases involving [Pitt’s] counsel, but that in recent years he had only undertaken one or two cases that settled without his involvement.”
“Hidden was the fact that Judge Ouderkirk’s relationship with Respondent’s counsel had continued and expanded into 2020.”
It was reported that the judge had been working for Pitt’s attorneys on several concealed cases, with one of them being the divorce between Modern Family co-creator and executive producer Steve Levitan and wife Krista.
It was revealed that Levitan and Krista’s bitter case “had not in fact settled in 2018 as had been represented by the judge’s disclosures. Rather, Judge Ouderkirk’s appointment was extended from June 20, 2019 to August 1, 2020.”
Jolie’s attorneys are demanding a disqualification of the judge who as 10 days to respond to the filing, submitted on August 7.