RICH DIVORCEE IS SUED
Alienated Judge’s Affections, Says Wife, Asking $25,000.
CALLED HIM “NICEST MAN”
Woman Visited Justice Almost Daily for Year and a Half, and Took Him Riding in Automobile, Declares Petition–Even Called Him Up by Telephone at Home Is Charge–Jealous Says Husband.
San Diego, Cal., April 7.–Fast upon the heels of the divorce complaint filed by Justice of the Peace J. Edward Keating recently and his subsequent arrest on a charge of battery upon his wife, comes the filing of a complaint by Mrs. Keating against Mrs. Adeline E. B. Reyburn, a wealthy divorcee, charging her with alienating the affections of the judge. Mrs. Reyburn is sued for $25,000 damages.
In the complaint the domestic troubles of the Keatings and their two separations are laid at the door of Mrs. Reyburn, for whom Judge Keating appeared as attorney when she obtained her final decree of divorce in January of last year.
Mrs. Keating declares in her charges that she and Keating lived together from the date of their marriage in July, 1913, until July 7, 1914, when they separated, and that they again resumed marital relations December 12, 1914, living together until March 13 this year. Upon that date, according to the complaint, Judge Keating left her.
Took Him for Auto Rides
During October, 1913, and from then on until the final separation in March this year, says the complaint, Mrs. Reyburn “did maliciously alienate the affections of plaintiff’s said husband and did illegally persuade and entice him away from her and cause him to ill—treat, abuse, abandon, and desert her.”
In pursuance of this plan, alleges Mrs. Keating, Mrs. Reyburn called upon the judge almost daily for a year and a half, took him automobile riding with her, and constantly rang him up on the telephone even at his home. On many of these occasions, said Mrs. Keating last night, she herself answered the telephone and recognized the voice of Mrs. Reyburn.
Judge Called “Nicest Man.”
Mrs. Reyburn also is alleged to have told Mrs. Keating and others that she was in love with Judge Keating; that she could not live without him, and that he was “the nicest man she ever saw.” In January of 1913, according to the complaint, Judge Keating procured for Mrs. Reyburn an interlocutory decree of divorce, and in January, 1914, a final decree.
According to information in the hands of Mrs. Keating, Mrs. Reyburn is worth in excess of $50,000, which she is said to have recently inherited from wealthy relatives. Mrs. Reyburn has three sons, and during the campaign last year when Keating was a candidate for justice of the peace she was active in his behalf and her automobile carried banners advocating his election, it is alleged.
Declarations of Love Cited.
In order to accomplish her purpose, according to the complaint, Mrs. Reyburn, to entice Judge Keating away from his wife and to induce him to file suit for divorce, “made to him and to others declarations of her great affection and love for the husband of this plaintiff and did cause and procure him to treat with her great harshness and unkindness and to say to her, plaintiff, that he was going to get a divorce from her, plaintiff, and that he was going to marry her, the said defendant, when he obtained such divorce.”
In the divorce action filed by Keating, March 15, according to the complaint filed yesterday, Judge Keating accused his wife of being jealous of him and that she insisted on accompanying him wherever he went and charged him with illicit relations with other women. Her jealousy, says Mrs. Keating, was caused by the declarations and manifestations of affection on the part of Mrs. Reyburn for the judge.
Source: Rich Divorcee is Sued, The Washington Post, Washington, District of Columbia, 9 April 1915, p. 4.