
Former New Jersey governor James E. McGreevey had little time for his daughter while he was running the state and exposed her to a picture of a nude male model at his home, his wife said in divorce papers Thursday. In the documents, Dina Matos McGreevey also seeks legal and primary residential custody of the couple's 5-year-old daughter, Jacqueline.
The McGreeveys' increasingly contentious divorce comes as Matos McGreevey prepares to release a tell-all book on May 1 about her marriage to the gay governor. McGreevey, 49, penned his own memoir, released last year.
When McGreevey filed for divorce in February, he said the couple had resolved custody issues. But Matos McGreevey said no such agreement had been made. The former governor has filed revised complaints seeking joint custody and a parenting coordinator to help settle visitation disputes.
''Unfortunately, divorces are contentious by nature, if not painful,'' McGreevey said Thursday. ''I believe Dina and I want to serve the best interests of Jacqueline. Hopefully, with the court's assistance, we'll come to an amicable resolution.''
In her filing Thursday, Matos McGreevey accuses her husband of not shouldering his share of their daughter's $995 monthly preschool tuition and exposing her to media during his book tour.
She also wants the court to prohibit Jacqueline from seeing the ''life-size photograph of a nude male model'' by artist Richard Renaldi. McGreevey and his partner took down the photo from the master bedroom, Matos McGreevey said, but only after she threatened to withhold visitation.
She said that McGreevey didn't bother to meet her at a hospital emergency room after their daughter fell and cut her chin in 2003.
''We were there...between five and six hours,'' she said. ''Plaintiff never even came to the hospital even though he passed not too far away en route to a Democratic Party function.''
Matos McGreevey and her lawyer did not return calls for comment Thursday. (Angela Delli Santi, AP)
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