A few interesting games played before stadium even finished

With all the i's dotted and t's crossed in what had to be the most complicated deal in history, Billy Prim stood before a phalanx of cameras Monday night and described the delicate nature of the negotiations.

"As we have said before, this is a very complex financing plan," Prim said, reading from a prepared statement.

Divorces can be like that.

What? You thought that the holdup over resuming construction of the $48.7 million ballpark in downtown Winston-Salem was the result of bickering over business?

That's only part of the story.

Divorce is the other part.

The thick divorce file involving Prim's former business partner and now ex-brother-in-law, Andrew "Flip" Filipowski, offers insight into a massive potential deal-breaker -- financial negotiations involving Filipowski and his estranged wife. Not coincidentally, a financial portion of the divorce negotiations was resolved Monday afternoon.

The key phrase, which only a lawyer could love, appears in a motion filed last week by Gary Tash, one of the attorneys representing Veronica Filipowski:

The parties "entered into a written settlement agreement that was based upon the happening of a contingency that … will be known definitely by the end of September," the motion reads, with the emphasis being Tash's.

Gee, could that contingency possibly be that Filipowski finally agreed to some terms of the property settlement in his divorce and a formal end to his partnership with Prim?

"Duh," said a source close to the negotiations bound by confidentiality.

Not forthright?

Clear answers about the role that Filipowski's divorce played in the stalled ballpark deal have not been -- and likely will not ever be -- made public.

But somehow, as Filipowski and his wife battled over money and property -- and Prim and Filipowski sought a business divorce -- cash became a factor, and the two became entwined.

Whether that was strictly financial or something as basic as pent-up acrimony in an expensive divorce, we also may never know.

City officials were adamant that public money not go to Filipowski, and some of the private investors putting up a total of $3 million likely felt the same way.

"My only comment is that I am extremely happy for the City of Winston-Salem, and my only regret is that most residents will never really understand or appreciate what a local hero we have in Billy Prim," Tash wrote in an e-mail.

Mayor Allen Joines, an early and staunch supporter of the ballpark, said he doesn't believe that the divorce issue was the primary holdup.

"There were, what, 22 lawyers involved?" Joines said yesterday. "Getting the buyout worked out happened early on in the arrangement, but there was an issue in the final release of the buyout that was worked out (Monday) between Mr. Prim and Mr. Filipowski."

What is clear is that as of early Monday, Filipowski still had not signed off on the deal. And city officials were growing restless.

Dueling legal documents helped resolve the situation. One filed by Veronica Filipowski's attorneys sought to force a settlement; an answer filed by Filipowski's attorneys claims that the deal was controlled "entirely by third parties and banking institutions" and not up to him.

Either way, it sure looks as if the two issues -- the divorce and ending a business partnership -- were connected.

Thus, the pronouncements by public officials that the delays were caused by banks and lawyers -- while technically accurate -- were not completely forthright, either.

Expensive tastes

The Filipowski divorce file itself is fascinating in the parts that are public. It involves accusations of infidelity and asset-hiding.

One document claims that Veronica Filipowski has spent nearly $200,000 for the services of an investigative accounting firm to track down her husband's many and far-flung assets, and sought an advance on her eventual settlement of "not less than $2 million dollars pending the trial of the equitable distribution case."

Still other motions crammed into the bulging file paint a portrait of a very wealthy man who owned at least five houses in North Carolina and South Carolina, and had an entire warehouse to hold an assortment of fine art, antique furniture, valuable sports memorabilia, automobiles and hundreds of bottles of wine.

But the dirty details don't really matter.

It didn't even come under the heading public interest until public money was committed to a project that was at least partially delayed by the whole mess.

Now it is finally over. Money to finish the ballpark is in escrow, and crews should be back to work this week.

The only thing left to decide is the political futures of those who helped get the city of Winston-Salem in this deal in the first place.

ssexton@wsjournal.com


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