Fla. millionaire convicted of murdering wife

[n2doc]

By MIKE SCHNEIDER, Associated Press

Saturday, September 24, 2011


(09-24) 08:47 PDT Orlando, Fla. (AP) --

A millionaire developer who lived in the same central Florida neighborhood as Tiger Woods and other celebrities was convicted Saturday of murdering his wife in their mansion.

The six jurors deliberated almost 12 hours over two days before finding Bob Ward guilty of second-degree murder. The two-week trial took place in the same courthouse where the Casey Anthony case was tried this summer.

Ward was stoic as the verdict was read. Before the verdict, he hugged his two college-aged daughters as the women wept.

He faces up to life in prison when he's sentenced in November.



Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/23/national/a191924D13.DTL

[MADem]

1. He was kind of a faux millionaire....he had a shit load of debt.

The Wards were under tremendous stress from the bankruptcy of his company and a lawsuit over his business practices. A broken wine glass, a wine stain on the patio and a similar stain on Ward's shirt indicated they had been fighting before Diane Ward died, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Kirk Kirkconnell told jurors it was against Bob Ward's interests to kill his wife because her death exposed his assets to his creditors.

Bob Ward's company, Land Resource, filed for bankruptcy almost a year before the shooting. He was being sued by an insurance company that accused him of taking more than $20 million from the sale of lots in subdivisions he was building in Tennessee in 2007. The insurance company, which had issued bonds for the subdivisions, said Ward should have used the money to improve the subdivisions, but instead paid off debts and went on a spending spree.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/09/23/national/a191924D13.DTL#ixzz1YtTEGAGz

[Warpy]

2. Most of them are exactly like that

which is why new money usually dies broke, that and overspending on lavish living, trying to compete with old money and failing miserably.