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Ms. Sowards graduated from Brigham Young University in 1969
and thereafter attended Cal-State Hayward for 2 years. She has
never taken an accounting course. During the years at issue, Ms.
Sowards was a stay-at-home mother and homemaker. Her work
history consists of 2 years of teaching primary school in or
about 1969, 2 years as a reading specialist in a primary school
after petitioners’ separation in 1997, and 2 months as a nanny in
2000.
Ms. Sowards knew little of her husband’s business affairs.
Her husband refused to provide and discuss with her any
information concerning his finances. For example, she had no
knowledge of the alleged loan agreement by and between Mr.
Strong/STL and her husband. She was unaware that WPA was a trust
of which she and her children were the named beneficiaries. As
both petitioners testified, she was never given a copy of the
shares of beneficial interest. Her husband told her that WPA was
the name he gave his law practice’s “operating” bank account.13
She believed that the approximately weekly checks written to her
from the WPA account were drawn on the law firm’s business
account. She testified that she never knew how much money her
husband was making and that the family lived “month-to-month”.
She had no access to WPA bank account statements. She did know,
13Ms. Sowards testified that upon questioning her husband
about the name, “he just said that WPA would mean something to
the elderly, something from the war days.”
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