Paradise Lost

No Pulitzer for Roxanne

The tone of His Honor's 19-page ruling was almost as undignified as the sex-centered Palm Beach divorce trial over which he presided. After listening for 18 days to conflicting tales of adultery, lesbian trysts, incest and drug use, Florida Circuit Court Judge Carl Harper, 55, ruled on the demands by Roxanne Pulitzer, 31, that her husband Peter Pulitzer, 52, pay her a reported $144,000 a year in alimony and child support, give her their $1.5 million estate and custody of their five-year-old twins, Mack and Zack. Terming the demands exorbitant, Harper said they reminded him of the hit song by Country Singer Jerry Reed, which protests: "She got the gold mine, I got the shaft."

Judge Harper decided that the latter should go to Roxanne, who was unemployed and living in a mobile home before she married Pulitzer, grandson of Newspaper Publisher Joseph Pulitzer, seven years ago. He ruled that she had "continuously engaged in adultery and other gross marital misconduct." Indeed, testimony indicated that she had slept with a Palm Beach real estate salesman, a French baker, a Belgian race-car driver and Jacquie Kimberly, beautiful wife of Kleenex Heir James Kimberly. The judge felt sorry for Pulitzer, he wrote, when he saw "the embarrassment, painful hurt and frustrating concern exuding from his doleful eyes and aging face." At the same time, "the wife nonchalantly sat at the table doodling on a note pad as though unconcerned." Later in the trial, the judge added, he was "somewhat relieved when the wife finally broke into tears. . . indicating that she was, after all, capable of human emotion and concern."

She has more cause for concern now. Harper awarded her only $2,000 a month for two years, a $7,000 interest in the Pulitzer yacht, a black Porsche, $60,000 worth of jewelry and $102,000 to pay her lawyer, who was asking $300,000. Pulitzer can keep his fortune, placed by the judge at $12.5 million, and take custody of the twins. After hearing the ruling, Roxanne took to her bed in tears.