That smoke you see billowing may be coming from the scorched earth custody battle unleashed by the nation’s biggest pundit, Bill O'Reilly. Apparently the atmosphere between O'Reilly and his ex-wife Maureen McPhilmy has become so toxic that even the Catholic Church has gotten involved.
According to Gawker, O'Reilly separated from his former wife McPhilmy at some point in 2011, then went on a rampage of revenge to destroy the career of the Nassau County Police detective she was allegedly dating.
Gawker reports that O'Reilly and McPhilmy are now formally divorced, and she has since married the police detective, but O'Reilly has reportedly now launched a scorched-earth custody battle dubbed Anonymous v. Anonymous—over the ex-couple's two children.
O'Reilly has also allegedly undermined his custody arrangement with his ex by hiring as a member of his household staff the woman who he and his ex had agreed on as a neutral arbiter of their disputes, Gawker claims. O'Reilly, a practicing Catholic, may also be making attempts to annul his marriage and have McPhilmy potentially excommunicated for continuing to take communion in her Long Island parish despite having been divorced and remarried.
In May 2010, O'Reilly and his wife began living in separate houses on Long Island, Gawker claims. Then in 2011 O'Reilly reportedly used his connections with the Nassau County Police Department to try to launch an internal affairs investigation into McPhilmy's new boyfriend — a Nassau County detective — for sleeping with his wife.
Gawker reports that it is currently suing the NCPD for access to public records, including O'Reilly's correspondence with former commissioner Lawrence Mulvey, about the episode. That case is on appeal to the Second Department of New York Supreme Court's Appellate Division.
Gawker claims it has uncovered a case involving O'Reilly and his ex in the Second Department. Called Anonymous 2011-1 v. Anonymous 2011-2, it apparently found a judge willing to anonymize the names to protect the interests of the children or the privacy of public citizens.
The case reportedly ended up in the appellate division, where decisions are routinely published, frequently laying bare sensitive details. The custody action is public record and is published on the web site of the New York state court system. It reportedly involves a father who attempted to maintain control over the children he shared with his ex-wife by buying off their purportedly neutral therapist. Anonymous 2011-1 is McPhilmy. Anonymous 2011-2 is O'Reilly.
Here's what the Second Department opinion reveals:
O'Reilly and McPhilmy separated on April 2, 2010.
They divorced on September 1, 2011.
They agreed to share custody of their two children, aged 13 and 10.
The couple's separation agreement included provisions allowing for shared custody—they each got the children on alternating weeks. And it also appointed a 'neutral therapist' to act as a neutral mediator to help them resolve any parenting disputes. But Gawker reveals that in October 2011 McPhilmy took O'Reilly to court after learning that the woman she thought had been a neutral therapist was in fact a member of her ex-husband's household staff.
The therapist, a Long Island licensed social worker named Lynne Kulakowski, was working long days and some evenings in O'Reilly's house, on his payroll, and basically acting as the children's nanny. McPhilmy was incensed.
The opinion reads:
'The mother claimed that the (father) had repeatedly violated conditions of the agreement. The mother further alleged that, after the execution of the agreement, the father had hired the children's therapist as a full-time employee to perform virtually all of his parental duties... The mother's affidavit contained specific allegations concerning the father's repeated violations of the custody provisions of the agreement since its inception... Moreover, the full-time employment of the children's therapist, the person designated in the agreement as a neutral third-party 'arbitrator' of custodial disputes, by the father, constitutes a significant change of circumstance which could undermine the integrity of the agreement's custodial provisions.'
At a Second Department hearing in January October, McPhilmy's attorney claimed—and O'Reilly's attorney did not dispute—that Kulakowski was earning a six-figure salary from O'Reilly.
This information made a mockery of the custody agreement's appointment of Kulakowski as a neutral arbiter, with O'Reilly reportedly rigging the game against his ex-wife.
A lower court initially denied McPhilmy's request for a hearing about O'Reilly's co-optation of the therapist, but the appellate court agreed with McPhilmy and sent the case back for a hearing. In a highly unusual step for an appellate court, it also ordered the appointment of an independent attorney for the children, an indication that the dispute has become particularly poisonous.
Meanwhile Gawker has learned that McPhilmy has been formally reprimanded in writing by her church for continuing to take communion in her Long Island parish despite having been divorced and remarried. The reprimand also instructed her to stop telling her children that her second marriage, to the Nassau County detective that O'Reilly allegedly tried to destroy, is valid in the eyes of God. It warned her that if she didn't comply, harsher measures may be in order.
O'Reilly, who interviewed Timothy Cardinal Dolan for Fox News last year, donated more than $65,000 to New York Catholic parishes and schools in 2011, according to the tax return of his nonprofit foundation, and he carries considerable weight in the archdiocese.
Gawker claims O'Reilly is now busy harassing McPhilmy about the holiness of her second marriage, whilst he tries to deny the existence of his first. According to the website he is seeking an annulment of his 15-year marriage, which produced two children. That would render it invalid in the eyes of God, as though it never happened, even though it produced two children.
O'Reilly's private actions contrast starkly with his public claims in support of the 'stability' heterosexual marriage brings to the culture and his concern about the declining marriage rates in countries that allow gay people to marry one another.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.abhainn | Jun 02, 2013, 07:23 PM EDT
Bill O'Reilly is a hypocrite fuelled by bitterness and hate, and not only against his wife.
bonshonn | May 16, 2013, 06:07 PM EDT
I despise Bill O'Reilly....he is out of sync with society, just spews a bunch of conservative bull out of his hateful, hypocritical mouth... kudos to his ex for moving on...I hope he loses his job, fame and dies a lonely pleb.
Blackduck | Apr 11, 2013, 05:53 PM EDT
The liberal so Called news will do every thing they do to make Bill O'Reilly look bad!
Buffalobrave | Apr 03, 2013, 10:01 AM EDT
I've been trying to get an annulment for years, but I am an average Joe, with no real money to donate. Movie stars and rich folk get their annulment no problem.
barbbq1 | Mar 23, 2013, 03:25 PM EDT
O'Rielly's ex deserves a gold medal for staying with such a bully for 15 years. He is a mean and vengeful man . The Catholic Chiurch will stand up for him only because he gives them lots of money he is certainly not a true Christian!
seanomelb | Mar 21, 2013, 06:49 PM EDT
There's nothing Irish about O'Reilly. He is a womanising religious hypocrite.It's No wonder his wife chose a new partner
mayoman | Mar 21, 2013, 10:19 AM EDT
If Bill O'Reilly were a cop, a bus driver, a teacher, or a letter carrier, who could only put a few hundred bucks in the collection basket, would he receive this level of preferential treatment and support from the Church? Of course not. BillO's lucre apparently buys a lot of canonical holiness.
Frosty38 | Mar 21, 2013, 10:03 AM EDT
Good for the wife. She must have gotten it all of it done with the church that she had to. Would you want to be married to HIM. I would not
McNamara31 | Mar 21, 2013, 08:06 AM EDT
Proud Canadian2 It's really old habits, along with accessibility to huge support networks that still exist today from Boston to Philadelphia.
Proud Canadian2 | Mar 20, 2013, 11:31 PM EDT
Hey Joe Kelsall I agree whole heartedly with your assesment of the Americans, but there is something that I don't understand. The Us is the first place the Irish go to. That includes my relatives. Canada is as good and in many ways better, but the Irish continue to flock to the states. It can't be the economy because right now Canada has a better economy and will have for years to come. It can't be because it is safer for Canada is way safer by a country mile. Although the Majority of the American people are real good people, I don't think that they can compare to the Majority of Canadians. It can't be the scenery because Canada has senery that is among the best in the world. What is the reason. I would like to know because I have been to Ireland many times and loved it there. I asked my relatives and others to come to Canada and they all say oh no we have to go to Florida,New York, Boston etc. Paddy come for the best time of your life to Canada.
Joe Kelsall | Mar 20, 2013, 07:32 PM EDT
This feckless dastard is a disgrace to his Irish name. In Ireland, it puzzles people that Americans would give credit to anything that comes out of his lying mouth. I put it down to the Irish being 'better read' than Americans, who are being fed only the current party line on their foreign affairs.
antoman | Mar 20, 2013, 07:17 PM EDT
He would have been a great hurler in his youth I'd say. Bill O Reilly with a hurley and a sliothar...?
McNamara31 | Mar 20, 2013, 06:11 PM EDT
And the "elite" New York Catholic High School "Chaminade" still uses this guy as a fundraiser and speaker ....What an example!
olovely | Mar 20, 2013, 06:09 PM EDT
This is the man who scolds gay people for 'undermining' marriage.
maryosullivan | Mar 20, 2013, 05:01 PM EDT
Hey O'Reilly, you the expert on all things, tell us again about the sexual harassment charges where you had to cough up six million dollars to keep one of your female employees, bet the wife was able to make a little hay on that PS; please stop making a mockery of us by your claim of being Irish Catholic.
Proud Canadian2 | Mar 20, 2013, 03:55 PM EDT
It is good for his ex to be away from him. Who could live with that idiot anyway. I feel sorry for his kids. Can you imagine the ridicule they get when other kids find out who there father is? As far as the church is concerned who ever pays them the most is the one they will back. I suggest that his ex and her new husband try and scrape up 70 or 80 thousand and the church will be on there door step before you can say RC.
EphraimKibbey | Mar 20, 2013, 02:45 PM EDT
So he cares SO MUCH for his children that he wants to make them illegitimate, way to show your love Bill. Bill is a poster boy for the 1%. "If I don't get my way, I'll buy it!" Their HUBRIS continues to drag our country down. Watch how they lied us into the Iraq War (190,000 dead including 40,000 Americans, 32,000 maimed and $$$2.2 TRILLION spent, not counting what it will cost to care for our noble, misused vets) on MSNBC Friday at 9pm. Then there were those Cheney/Bush tax cuts and "deficits do not matter" bright ideas that wrecked what was left of our economy. Its time to bring the 1% back to earth with the rest of us.
Nicomax | Mar 20, 2013, 02:43 PM EDT
Hey Billo, I'm sure one or more of the Kardashian ladies are available to meet your needs. I'd be careful however, since these gals are very good at this game.
merefalow | Mar 20, 2013, 01:42 PM EDT
but out church,crazy jealous husband would rather hand all his loot to the lawyers than come to a sensible accomodation with his wife.i,m glad i,m not religious,wheres all that kindness and forgiveness they are always on about?
eiriamach | Mar 20, 2013, 11:52 AM EDT
The Church charged only $65,000 for telling the O'Reilly children that their mother is, in effect, a slut? "The reprimand also instructed her to stop telling her children that her second marriage, to the Nassau County detective that O'Reilly allegedly tried to destroy, is valid in the eyes of God. It warned her that if she didn't comply, harsher measures may be in order." Which churchman has the wisdom to decide what is "valid in the eyes of God"? They have a right to refuse McPhilmy communion; they have no right to slander her as a wife and mother. But why would we expect them to show more concern for a woman and her children than they've shown for the victims of pedophiles?
BoysofBantry | Mar 20, 2013, 11:41 AM EDT
O'Reilly, after using his foundation to give Cardinal Dolan $65,000 requested that his marriage be annulled while he is recommended for Sainthood and the little former Mrs. is excommunicated from the church then stoned to death. The kids? Oh! They think the world of their father, or that he is other worldly. Of course the church donation was a tax write off and the Social Worker/Nanny is another deductible expense. The man has a history of hostility toward free thinking beings, particularly women.
pilib04 | Mar 20, 2013, 09:56 AM EDT
My, wonder which side the "Church" will come down on? Oops they already did take sides, "Irish Central Writers" simply omitted this FACTOID! Of course, the Church came down on the side of the wealthy and powerful!!!
JimmieM | Mar 20, 2013, 09:44 AM EDT
Perfect Case for Lawyers, using the LAW they have turned dislike to hate and will be making lots of money from these two for years to come.....Well Done