dina

Dina Matos took a calculated risk and lost. Offered a settlement said to top $300,000 early in divorce talks with her gay ex-husband, former New Jersey governor James E. McGreevey, Matos turned it down. The epic four-year drama that ensued cost each a half-million dollars and further drained the well in the court of public favor.

A former aide to ex-governor Jim McGreevey of New Jersey claims he had sexual trysts with McGreevey and his now-estranged wife while they dated before the governor took office. Theodore Pedersen detailed multiple trysts in interviews Sunday with The Star-Ledger of Newark and the New York Post. McGreevey's former driver and traveling aide disputes claims by Dina Matos McGreevey that she did not know about her husband's homosexuality when she married him in October 2000.

New Jersey's former first couple is finally about to become unhitched, and it figures to be especially messy. Jim and Dina Matos McGreevey's divorce trial, which starts Tuesday, means the end of their 3 1/2-year separation that has lasted nearly as long as their marriage. The trial will feature the usual squabbles -- the ex-governor wants equal custody of their 6-year-old daughter, and alimony and child support are at issue as well. But the proceedings figure to be particularly salacious because of the question everybody has asked at least once: Did she know he was gay?

The nation's first openly gay governor could have become a talk-show host, pursued a movie deal, or otherwise cashed in on his fame after a sex scandal forced him from office, a lawyer for his estranged wife argued Monday. John Post, who represents Dina Matos McGreevey, is trying to convince the judge in the couple's divorce case that James McGreevey has underestimated his earning potential and net worth to avoid paying alimony to his soon-to-be ex-wife. McGreevey's lawyer, Stephen Haller, has tried to show that his client, now an Episcopal seminary student, is too poor to pay.

Former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey said he, his wife, and a male aide engaged in sexual threesomes, contradicting a denial issued hours earlier by his estranged spouse. In an e-mail to the Associated Press, the first openly gay governor in the U.S. said Monday that published reports by former campaign aide Teddy Pedersen are true. In interviews posted online Sunday night by The Star-Ledger of Newark and the New York Post, Pedersen said he had consensual sex with the couple for about two years before McGreevey became governor. He said he had contact only with Dina Matos McGreevey during the trysts and was not sure whether McGreevey was gay.