ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida Rep. Alan Grayson's divorce case got messier during a hearing at an Orange County courtroom on Monday.
Both Alan Grayson and Lolita Grayson attended an annulment hearing Monday morning. The congressman claims his 25-year marraige to Lolita Grayson was never legal because she was still married when she and him wed in 1990.
"I called Guam. But a lot of things have been lost because they're so old," attorney Mark NeJame said.
NeJame read a deposition of Lolita Grayson to try to show that her story about her previous divorce keeps changing. She claims to have been divorced in Guam, but NeJame found paperwork showing she was divorced in Broward County in 1994, after marrying the congressman.
"How can anybody be allowed to say, if it's 25 years of lies, somebody's just supposed to bow down and say, 'Oh my mistake," said NeJame. "No,that's wrong."
But after five children and two decades, Lolita Grayson's attorney argues that Alan Grayson should take responsibility.
"(He should) take care of his wife of 25 years and work through the terms of this divorce, rather than choose to look for any way he can to get out of those responsibilities of that marriage," attorney Mark Longwell said.
After hearing from one witness Monday, Judge Bob LeBlanc continued proceedings between Grayson and his wife, citing a need for more time for attorneys to present evidence.
The witness was Charles Lincoln, a private investigator who established through public records that the Robert A. Carson who signed a marriage contract in the Philippines in 1980 was the same one who filed for divorce from Lolita Grayson in Florida in 1993.
Monday's hearing lasted three hours. LeBlanc expects completion of testimony to take one day. He didn't schedule another hearing date.