Wife in Macomb Probate battle responds to lopsided verdict
Mariya Wintoniw clutched a stack of check receipts she said shows that her husband, Iwan “John” Hlywa, sent thousands of dollars over many years to his relatives in Ukraine. She declared, in a thick Ukrainian accent, “John no cheapskate.”
Wintoniw, 73, made the remark at the end of a two-hour interview in which she insisted her husband was the one who generously decided to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to her children, as well as his own relatives in their native Ukraine, and let her have access to his money.
“John like help my children. John like help me,” Wintoniw said in broken English and a thick accent in the kitchen of the Warren home of her friends, Paul and Pat Galat.
Wintoniw talked in response to a jury verdict Tuesday that decided she committed fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment by influencing Hlywa to give her and her family $500,000 of his money during their five-year marriage before he died in 2011 at 84.
The verdict followed a three-week trial in front of Judge Carl Marlinga in Macomb County Probate Court in Mount Clemens. She was sued by Hlywa’s sons, Steve and Nick, who sought $545,000 that they say she prodded their frugal father to give her: $340,000 of it to her family in Ukraine and the rest in the form of bonds, CDs and cash.
Paul Galat called the verdict “not a loss, complete devestation.”
He said he believes the fraud portion of the verdict was based on “innuendo,” that there was no evidence of it.
Her attorney, Walter Czechowski, was not available for comment.
The jury also ruled that a will by Iwan Hlywa in June 2011, three months before his death, was invalid. The will divided about $270,000 in monetary assets and six properties three ways between Wintoniw and the two sons.
The jury also gave Marlinga an advisory verdict that quit-claim deeds for the properties were done improperly. A hearing on the properties may be held next week.
The plaintiffs should be able to collect some of the money from about $200,000 that was frozen pending the outcome of the case, said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Patrick McQueeney. Additional money is in the form of bonds, and the plaintiffs could try to pursue money or assets in Ukraine, he said.
In the interview, Wintoniw responded to McQueeney’s claim that she “married him for the money.”
“I loved my husband, Iwan, very long, very good person,” she said. “My sweetheart friend, very love, very good.”
She said she me Hlywa, who like her was widowed, at an Ukrainian church in Hamtramck in 1998.
Wintoniw said in their initial years she “felt sorry” for Hlywa and thought he was poor because he dressed in old clothes. She learned he had some money from rental property income on top of his own home on Republic Street near Nine Mile and Hoover roads.
She left for Ukraine in 2004 because her green card expired. She said Hlywa wrote or called her twice a week and finally traveled to Ukraine in 2006 and married her. She agreed to a prenuptial agreement that Hlywa’s children sent to them in Ukraine.
Hlywa was warmly welcomed by her family, including her two children and grandchildren, during his two-month visit, she said. After he returned, he began sending money back there for her family to fix a farm and buy farm equipment, a tractor and combine. He also gave them money to pay off student loans.
Wire transfers show he sent at least $281,000 over five years.
Galat, 70, who said he knew Hlywa since he came to the United States in his early 20s, said his friend was eager to financially help others but didn’t spend money on himself.
“John was generous,” he said.
Wintoniw said she didn’t learn of her husband’s significant assets -- that at one time totaled $1.5 million -- until shortly after their marriage.
Regarding the will, she said that Hlywa actually didn’t want to give Steve and Nick any money but that she convinced him to split his assets three ways.
“She said, ‘No, John, that’s not right,’” Galat said.
The prenuptial agreement was also revoked at that time.
She countered claims that her husband was not mentally sharp and vulnerable to influence after he suffered a heart attack in 2007, and in April 2011 was given six months to live due to a variety of ailments. She said he was still driving.
“Feel good,” she said of Hlywa. “(His attorney) ask, ‘Mr. Hlywa, who first president of United States?’ John talk, ‘George Washington.’ Very smart. He understand.”
McQueeney disputed her account of that incident and nearly every other claim she made in the case.
“There’s a difference between fact and fantasy,” he said, noting the jury voted 7-0 for the conversion and enrichment counts and 5-2, the minimum requirement, on the fraud count.
A juror who did not want to be identified told The Macomb Daily that the panel decided that the transfers turned from conversion to fraud after Wintoniw’s name was placed onto her husband’s credit-union account. Hlywa transferred $160,000 to Ukraine before the account became joint in October 2008.
“It looks like he trusted her and gave her a signed bank slip to do banking every month which is when she did her thing,” the juror said in an email. “Once it turned to fraud, after she was put on (the) account, everything that happened after that including signing (the) revocation (of the prenuptial agreement) and new will was signed under false pretenses, in our minds, which in turn made all those documents void. ... About splitting the money: She already had a nice chunk which we knew no one would ever see again, and to give her more on top of that was not right.”
Wintoniw said she has very little money other than a $1,400 Social Security benefit she receives as Hlywa’s surviving spouse.
She said she doesn’t know whether she will stay here or move to Ukraine. Much may depend on whether she receives any of the properties in Marlinga’s ruling.
Wintoniw, 73, made the remark at the end of a two-hour interview in which she insisted her husband was the one who generously decided to send hundreds of thousands of dollars to her children, as well as his own relatives in their native Ukraine, and let her have access to his money.
“John like help my children. John like help me,” Wintoniw said in broken English and a thick accent in the kitchen of the Warren home of her friends, Paul and Pat Galat.
Wintoniw talked in response to a jury verdict Tuesday that decided she committed fraud, conversion and unjust enrichment by influencing Hlywa to give her and her family $500,000 of his money during their five-year marriage before he died in 2011 at 84.
The verdict followed a three-week trial in front of Judge Carl Marlinga in Macomb County Probate Court in Mount Clemens. She was sued by Hlywa’s sons, Steve and Nick, who sought $545,000 that they say she prodded their frugal father to give her: $340,000 of it to her family in Ukraine and the rest in the form of bonds, CDs and cash.
Paul Galat called the verdict “not a loss, complete devestation.”
He said he believes the fraud portion of the verdict was based on “innuendo,” that there was no evidence of it.
Her attorney, Walter Czechowski, was not available for comment.
The jury also ruled that a will by Iwan Hlywa in June 2011, three months before his death, was invalid. The will divided about $270,000 in monetary assets and six properties three ways between Wintoniw and the two sons.
The jury also gave Marlinga an advisory verdict that quit-claim deeds for the properties were done improperly. A hearing on the properties may be held next week.
The plaintiffs should be able to collect some of the money from about $200,000 that was frozen pending the outcome of the case, said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Patrick McQueeney. Additional money is in the form of bonds, and the plaintiffs could try to pursue money or assets in Ukraine, he said.
In the interview, Wintoniw responded to McQueeney’s claim that she “married him for the money.”
“I loved my husband, Iwan, very long, very good person,” she said. “My sweetheart friend, very love, very good.”
She said she me Hlywa, who like her was widowed, at an Ukrainian church in Hamtramck in 1998.
Wintoniw said in their initial years she “felt sorry” for Hlywa and thought he was poor because he dressed in old clothes. She learned he had some money from rental property income on top of his own home on Republic Street near Nine Mile and Hoover roads.
She left for Ukraine in 2004 because her green card expired. She said Hlywa wrote or called her twice a week and finally traveled to Ukraine in 2006 and married her. She agreed to a prenuptial agreement that Hlywa’s children sent to them in Ukraine.
Hlywa was warmly welcomed by her family, including her two children and grandchildren, during his two-month visit, she said. After he returned, he began sending money back there for her family to fix a farm and buy farm equipment, a tractor and combine. He also gave them money to pay off student loans.
Wire transfers show he sent at least $281,000 over five years.
Galat, 70, who said he knew Hlywa since he came to the United States in his early 20s, said his friend was eager to financially help others but didn’t spend money on himself.
“John was generous,” he said.
Wintoniw said she didn’t learn of her husband’s significant assets -- that at one time totaled $1.5 million -- until shortly after their marriage.
Regarding the will, she said that Hlywa actually didn’t want to give Steve and Nick any money but that she convinced him to split his assets three ways.
“She said, ‘No, John, that’s not right,’” Galat said.
The prenuptial agreement was also revoked at that time.
She countered claims that her husband was not mentally sharp and vulnerable to influence after he suffered a heart attack in 2007, and in April 2011 was given six months to live due to a variety of ailments. She said he was still driving.
“Feel good,” she said of Hlywa. “(His attorney) ask, ‘Mr. Hlywa, who first president of United States?’ John talk, ‘George Washington.’ Very smart. He understand.”
McQueeney disputed her account of that incident and nearly every other claim she made in the case.
“There’s a difference between fact and fantasy,” he said, noting the jury voted 7-0 for the conversion and enrichment counts and 5-2, the minimum requirement, on the fraud count.
A juror who did not want to be identified told The Macomb Daily that the panel decided that the transfers turned from conversion to fraud after Wintoniw’s name was placed onto her husband’s credit-union account. Hlywa transferred $160,000 to Ukraine before the account became joint in October 2008.
“It looks like he trusted her and gave her a signed bank slip to do banking every month which is when she did her thing,” the juror said in an email. “Once it turned to fraud, after she was put on (the) account, everything that happened after that including signing (the) revocation (of the prenuptial agreement) and new will was signed under false pretenses, in our minds, which in turn made all those documents void. ... About splitting the money: She already had a nice chunk which we knew no one would ever see again, and to give her more on top of that was not right.”
Wintoniw said she has very little money other than a $1,400 Social Security benefit she receives as Hlywa’s surviving spouse.
She said she doesn’t know whether she will stay here or move to Ukraine. Much may depend on whether she receives any of the properties in Marlinga’s ruling.
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