Former lawyer sues first ex-wife in order to satisfy requirements of divorce from second ex-wife

From the confines of a Kentucky prison, former Glen Carbon attorney Gary E. Peel has filed suit against his first ex-wife and her attorney saying they procured court orders that impair his ability to satisfy requirements of a divorce settlement with his second ex-wife.

Peel filed the suit July 23 in Madison County Circuit Court against Deborah J. Peel and Donald W. Urban.

Gary and Deborah Peel were divorced in 2003, and Gary filed for bankruptcy protection July 22, 2005, with his ex-wife listed as a disputed creditor.

In 2006, Gary mixed blackmail and child pornography by copying nude photographs of Deborah's then-16-year-old sister with whom he claimed he had a consensual sexual affair with, and stuck the photographs in Deborah's mailbox. He had threatened to make the photographs public if Deborah kept trying to enforce their divorce agreement through his bankruptcy proceedings.

She called postal authorities, who called federal prosecutors. Agents wired her and sent her to meet Gary, who proposed to swap his photos for her signature on a settlement.

Arrest followed and he was convicted in 2007 on bankruptcy fraud and child pornography possession charges. He is serving a 12-year sentence.

According to Peel's new complaint, he divorced second wife Deborah Pontious on June 25, 2007.

The complaint states Deborah Peel and Urban filed petitions in 2012 to restrain the disposition of stock and assets that Gary Peel says were already allocated to Pontious in the 2007 dissolution of marriage.

It states that in 2012 Urban obtained court orders restraining Gary from encumbering any assets that come into his possession and requiring him and U.S. bankruptcy trustee Robert T. Bruegge to deposit them into the St. Clair County clerk's office.

The complaint says that on March 12, the court authorized Bruegge to abandon his interest in certain stock which would revert to Gary, but the defendants' actions are impeding his ability to transfer stock and ownership options to Pontious as required by their dissolution of marriage.

The defendants are accused of wrongful pre-judgment attachment.

Gary Peel is seeking more than $100,000 in damages. He is appearing pro se.

Madison County Circuit Court Case No. 14-L-1022.