GUARDIAN OR GOLD DIGGER?
Court to decide in Forman divorce: Clerk of court was spouse’s successor; she wants to be temporary guardian
FORT LAUDERDALE — A highranking elected official in Broward County is embroiled in a sordid divorce in which she’s accused of claiming her 71-year-old husband is feeble-minded to gain control of his money.
The legal turmoil now surrounding Clerk of Court Brenda D. Forman is an unusual turn in an already-curious political tale.
At the center of the drama is Brenda Forman’s husband of four years, longtime politician Howard C. Forman, who most recently served as the clerk of court himself, until he stepped down and helped propel his wife into public office — right into his old job.
Brenda Forman had no political experience, no college degree and no background in management when she was elected in 2016 to replace her husband. She had worked as a $22,000-a-year clerk in his office for less than two years when they married and she resigned. She implored voters to keep the Forman name going and catapulted into a countywide elected post with an annual salary of $170,000 and responsibility for 750 employees and a $37 million budget.
Trouble erupted publicly three months after she took office. Howard Forman filed for divorce March
29. The next day she asked a judge to appoint her temporary guardian over her husband, with oversight over his well-being, property and bank accounts.
She told the court he may suffer from early-onset dementia.
His legal camp argues she’s just trying to stall the divorce and gain control of about $12,000 a month he collects in pension, as well as Social Security benefits and interest on a lump-sum payout of $904,350 in taxdeferred savings he received in January from the Florida Retirement System.
Brenda Forman denies this.
“I never did anything wrong to Howard, but love him, care for him,” she told the Sun Sentinel in a brief phone interview. “And help to protect him and make sure that he was in good health. That I will say. I still love my husband to this day.”
Howard Forman told the Sun Sentinel he wants to “live in peace” and will let the court sort it out.
“My memory is fine,” he said. “I feel very good.”
The Forman name
They were an unconventional couple from the start. He, white and Jewish. She, black and Christian, and 12 years his junior.
He was the clerk of court and a widower when he started dating Brenda, who worked in the traffic and misdemeanor division of the clerk’s office, gathering documents for judges. She sold real estate on the side.
They married May 30, 2013. It was the third marriage for each. He was 67 and she 54.
Friends of Howard’s saw she made him happy. They traveled and went dancing and appeared affectionate in public.
Ultimately, Howard Forman decided it was time to retire from the clerk’s office, which processes and stores documents for the courts and county government.
Brenda Forman told Rosita J. Smith, a real estate broker she worked for, that Howard was “becoming ill and was not up to performing his duties there,” Smith recalled. “She had worked for him and felt like she should run for the election. She felt like God was leading her to do that. It was a calling.”
Brenda Forman collected her first campaign contribution in February 2015 — $100, from Howard Forman.
The political establishment in Broward did not back Brenda in the 2016 election and largely supported Mitch Ceasar, the longtime chairman of the Broward Democratic Party. A court bailiff and a seasoned administrator in the Public Defender’s Office also ran.
Brenda Forman was widely seen as lacking the educational and career background for the job. She had taken courses at Miami Dade and Broward community colleges, and Union Institute & University, an online school. She worked as a legal secretary in the Broward State Attorney’s Office for a couple of years, and sold real estate.
Her personal financial situation was at times troubled. After a couple of years on unemployment, she filed for bankruptcy in March 2012, and soon after a lender foreclosed on her Davie home.
During the campaign, Brenda Forman emphasized her real estate work; history in the clerk’s office; stint as a staff assistant at ChildNet, a social services agency; and membership in several community groups, such as the Kiwanis Club.
“I am a leader. I am not a boss. I am not a politician. I’m a public servant,” she said at one event. “I want to be your next clerk of the court because of my strong ability to lead.”
Howard Forman accompanied her to events, driving her around the county. “She was my wife,” he said in a recent interview. “She wanted to run, and I supported her wholeheartedly.”
In victory, she credited her husband’s prestige.
“That Forman name helped carry me to where I need to be today,” she told the crowd at her swearingin ceremony on Jan. 3, as Howard stood silently next to her, his arm around her back. “I love this man.”
She noted his four decades of public service. He had served as the clerk of courts for 16 years, and before that as state senator, county commissioner and Hallandale Beach city commissioner.
“He has retired as of 12:59 pm, Dec. 31,” Brenda Forman told the audience. “He is no longer a politician. He is no longer the clerk of the court. He is just a regular citizen.”
Howard nodded and waved as the gathering applauded his service.
Two months later, powerhouse lobbyist Ron Book saw the couple at a Florida Court Clerks & Comptrollers conference near Orlando and talked to both at length. He noticed no discord or dementia.
He said he and Howard discussed an ongoing lawsuit Howard filed in Tallahassee in May 2016 over inadequacies in state funding of the clerk of courts offices. “I had an intelligent conversation with him,” Book recalled.
Within weeks of the conference, the Formans’ union unraveled.
Police summoned
On March 27, Brenda summoned police to the Formans’ Davie home.
She told the officer her husband was showing signs of dementia and forgot where he had parked his car after a doctor’s visit. She had retrieved the car and was holding his car keys when he tried to snatch them from her and fell.
She had overheard him telling someone on the phone that she “stole his car and was stealing his money,” a police report states.
He told police he was upset because she wouldn’t let him drive.
“We had a big fight,” he explained to the Sun Sentinel.
Howard Forman went to stay with his stepson, Fort Lauderdale attorney Todd Stone, and filed for divorce two days later.
The following day, March 30, Brenda asked a judge to name her his temporary guardian. She argued in the court filing that her husband was in “imminent danger” physically and mentally and that his money was at risk of being “wasted, misappropriated or lost,” because he was not taking his proper medication, attending doctors’ appointments or keenly managing his assets.
Forman’s attorney said the move was a tactic to delay the divorce. Under Florida law, a person who is declared mentally incompetent cannot obtain a divorce for three years.
The court has ordered both sides to meet with a mediator by Sept. 14.
Brenda Forman now is living in the $418,000 house in Davie the couple bought in early 2015, shortly after their marriage. A judge in April ordered her to box up Howard Forman’s clothes and medical and financial records and put them outside the house for him to collect.
Forman had told the court Brenda had “been aggressive” toward him and he was afraid to go inside.
In an early attempt to stave off the appointment of Brenda as his guardian, Howard Forman agreed to voluntarily obtain the help of a professional guardian to manage his money. After reviewing his financial statements, he told the court in early June, he realized he was not properly protecting and managing his assets “because of my age, which may have made me subject to undue influence and perhaps financial exploitation.”
Forman now says he does not need a professional guardian and that his family members are helping him.
Each side has accused the other of improperly withdrawing money from their accounts.
Howard Forman filed a fraud report with the Social Security Administration, accusing her of transferring two months of his Social Security benefits, totaling $5,092, without his permission to a bank account she controls. A Social Security spokesman declined to discuss the claim, citing privacy rules, but said generally the agency works administratively to resolve problems involving misdirected checks of small sums.
Howard Forman has also alleged in court records that Brenda withdrew his monthly pension benefit and complained that he could not determine where Brenda was depositing money from a tenant in a Pembroke Pines house they rent.
Her lawyer responded in a letter that the rental property “does not produce a significant income,” and that Brenda Forman was paying the homeowners association fees, the first mortgage and upkeep on the property.
She accused her husband of withdrawing thousands of dollars from their accounts and noted that she had paid some of his expenses.
Conflicts of interest
By the nature of her position, Brenda Forman is now in the awkward spot of having to process and preserve public records of her own complicated and personal legal saga.
Forman’s lawyer has complained to the court that the clerk’s office, for unknown reasons, delayed issuing a case number for the divorce for days. He’s questioned why the case disappeared from public view after Brenda Forman filed a motion to seal it, even though a judge hadn’t agreed to this. The file has since been restored.
In July, Brenda asked the court to move her request for guardianship to MiamiDade County. A decision is pending.
She noted that the main function of the clerk is to support the Broward judges. The judge in this case would be put in the uncomfortable position of ruling on whether a longstanding former colleague is incapacitated.
Brenda Forman argued that she may not get a fair hearing on her position in Broward because of her husband’s deep ties in the local legal and political community.
On the other hand, if a judge ruled in favor of her, she argued, the judge could be subject to “backlash” from well-connected allies of Howard Forman.
“At the very least, it would seem unfair to place the judge in this position,” she argued.
‘I never did anything wrong to Howard, but love him, care for him . ... I still love my husband to this day.’ Brenda Forman