Attorney Richard Fields his estranged wife Ekaterina may represent the worst of stereotypes that people have of the top 1 percent and their distinct problems. The couple has been in an intense battle of who gets a $100,000 baby grand piano in the couple’s former New York apartment. Neither is actually a pianist but Fields, who is managing director of Juridica Asset Management, insists that he already lost another baby grand in an earlier divorce from another wife. Indeed, both of these people make a Tom Wolfe novel look like Little Home on the Prairie.
Fields’ attorney insists that the piano “has particular resonance.” The English court agreed to let Fields keep it.
The rest of the case is just as excessive. Ekaterina Parfenova, 42, is a former beauty queen who Fields claims demanded £500,000 from him to get her to divorce her first husband. She is now seeking £2.6million from Fields who is now planning to marry another woman — his sixth wife. Fields, 59, says that he willing gave her the money that appeared a condition for her leaving her first husband — an arrangement that sounds more like a NFL contract than a marriage. When asked if she would get a job, Parfenova balked at the idea actually working and insisted “No … I am a very good wife. I will try to find a husband.” So Fields is moving on to his sixth wife and Parfenova is trolling for another husband. In the meantime, Fields offered Parfenova £2.2million for a home but she is insisting on a £5.5million property in Kensington that requires a £3million mortgage costing £120,000 a year.
The couple married in 2002 and the most scary aspect of his story is that they have two children together. However, it was the baby grand that was the subject of the most recent litigation.
For his part, Fields continues to paint his wife as a gold digger and explains his own conduct in touching terms: “I am a generous man to a fault. I am not materialistic and in the past I have been too generous.” In addition to the baby grand, Fields has two Porsches at the U.S. residence with his new girlfriend lives (with full use of his American Express platinum card) and keeps a Jaguar in Miami.
What struck me about this case is how much court time is spent on the soon to be various marriages of both of these people. Indeed, given his history, I am surprised that Fields does not have all of this laid out rather neatly in prenup agreements. According to his bio, Fields worked at a series of large law firms before founding the company.
It is also striking how such negative stories are not viewed as a problem for Juridica Asset Management. We have been discussing how public controversies have been used to terminate employees but that rarely applies to people at the pay grade of the managing partner of Juridica Asset Management. The company boasts “Providing economic value through well thought out strategies.” Yet, the image of his managing director burning through lives and assets in conspicuous consumption stories cannot advance that frugal image particularly well. Then again his image of tossing around wealth may be precisely the image that the company wants to convey: such wealth creation that it can support an endless litany of marriages and divorces around the world.
Source: Daily Mail
Karen S … hard to tell where my love falls. I acted when one day I chanced on her banging out Beethoven’s Fur Elise, with accentuated chords as if she felt the music….on a banged up old Story & Clark upright piano. The shock came when I realized she was doing this without sheet music. She also played Chopin’s Revolutionary Étude the same way…from her ears and her heart. Yes, I “had” to enable it, and I suppose that is “love” but it was also a necessity…she had the talent I never had. She now acquires sheet music for the more complex pieces, but once read, she plays without it in front of her. This a kid, now near middle aged, whose favorite group, bar none, is “Nickelback”…go figure 🙂
He’s 59 years old?
Right.
And I’m the tooth fairy.
Aridog – great post about your daughter and your great love for her. 🙂
Past behavior predicts future. He’d already been divorced 4 times before, so his pattern would have been to divorce again. So she should have had zero doubt that it would not work out. He bought her by bribing him to leave her husband, to whom she was not loyal, so he should have known that when things inevitably didn’t work out with her, either, she was going to want a bigger payoff. With his young future 6th wife, he’s clearly putting himself out there as a Sugar Daddy, so that’s how she’s going to treat him, too.
They should do some serious introspection and realize that marriage does not suit them.
I feel very sorry for the kids of these two damaged people.
Annie,
No, I am saying that wealth and power allow people to hide truly vicious crimes such as pedophilia. This child sex abuse and murder go all the way to the inner workings of the British govt. and police. Their wealth and power shields them from accountability.
I’m equally certain this same kind of abuse and murder, along with a cover up is going on in the US.
LOL! Check out the piano in the background.
Jill, are you suggesting that this guy was part of this pedophile ring?
A photo of the guy and the piano, but no photo of Katya.
I’d love to see the woman whose beauty and charm caused him to fork over the £500,000 to facilitate her previous divorce. Somehow I picture her as looking like Trump’s wife, Melania, and calling this guy The Richard.
Ekaterina Parfenova?
Just one little tidbit of advice for him.
Don’t get in the kayak.
Correct some grammar. Or word use. “But” not “Buy Fields..” in that first paragraph.
The article though is much ado about nothing. I come to blog to read about civil rights and whatnot.
Yeah, you Americans are exemplary and have all your rich folks. But I dont give a flying frig about them. And I did not say “Buy”. I said “But”. uttBay on the oyeah.
Why do these people even bother with the formality of marriage since it appears it means nothing to them in the first place? Plus each divorce seems to be more and more expensive. Just hop in the sack with each other until they get tired of it and move on. Put everything you own and want to keep into an irrevocable trust.
At least they aren’t fighting over a living thing like a dog or children.
I can understand a fight over a baby grand piano….sort of. I gave my daughter a baby grand and that was the first stipulation she made in he divorce…that the piano went with her. She handed over the McMansion without a fuss, where he lives to this day, and moved, piano and all to downtown Detroit, where she thrives. Had the guy attempted to keep that piano, his problem would not have been my daughter, but me. I gave it to her before they married and would have forced him to relinquish it by force if necessary. Said daughter has some formal classical training, but mostly plays by “ear” including works by Beethoven, Chopin, and Mozart. The gift was meant to say I draw great joy from her playing, when I have the opportunity to hear it. Mostly she plays alone just for relaxation and pleasure. I’d let no one change that for a moment, unless she said to let it go. She won’t and in a few months I will again assist in moving it (involves disassembly), getting it re-tuned, and enjoying the music in the downtown home she buys. I played classical for some 10 years plus myself, but never had he talent, let alone her ear. It’s the one gift I choose that was perfect for her…and it was for no special occasion, just because.
Yeah, I have thing “thing” for pianos and the more I learned about them the more I am infected with their magic.
I saw a lawyer for information when I was considering divorce. He bragged about how the couple was fighting over a cherry dining room table. He suggested that I would get whatever I wanted and my soon-to-be-ex would be paying the legal fees. I went without a lawyer. Yea, I got screwed over, but better by my ex than the lawyer.
Somehow, the idea of a chainsaw comes to mind.
Here are better links to this story:
Over 1400 individuals are under investigation by British police as part of an inquiry into a historic VIP sex abuse network believed to include celebrities and politicians.
Information released by Operation Hydrant, the group of police officers tackling the alleged ring, said that the 1,433 suspected offenders included 76 politicians, 43 musicians, and 135 from film, television and radio.
http://rt.com/uk/260369-politicians-celebrity-sex-abuse/
P.S. It is almost impossible to type this information out or to provide links. I imagine this is happening in the US as well.
“Pedophiles Revelations Of British Pedophile Ring Spur Flood Of Abuse Reports get away with rape and murder of children because they are rich and powerful:”
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/21/408407168/revelations-of-british-pedophile-ring-spur-flood-of-abuse-reports
Is JT breaking in an intern because this article is not of his caliber.
Reminds me of the flick, War of the Roses.
Nick – there is a rather funny episode of Castle were they walk in on the recently divorced wife as she is destroying art objects that the husband got in the divorce and then the husband walks in and starts destroying stuff she got. Good physical comedy. 🙂
I think if you can afford to fight over a 100k baby grand (which you cannot play), you are showing your clients that you have what it takes to make big money. Divorces and funerals bring out the best in people.