Texan property magnate Preston Haskell IV has been handed a jail sentence by a London court, after refusing to pay his ex-wife’s maintenance.
The son of construction giant PH III will be jailed for six weeks on his return to England thanks to his five-year divorce row with model Alesia Vladimirovna Haskell, which has now reached the Court of Appeal in London.
Judges were told that Haskell IV had amassed a fortune in real estate, restaurants and international business, and in 2013 was linked with a bid to buy Coventry City Football Club.
The couple met in Moscow in 2003 but later moved to London, where they rented a £3.3m flat in Chelsea, west London. After they split amid accusations of the husband’s alleged infidelity, drinking and drug abuse, the UK family court ordered Haskell IV to pay his estranged wife £5.9m.
The first installment of £50,000 was due in February 2020, but Haskell not only failed to pay it but left the country.
The judge said that he was “quite clear that he has had, since the date of the order, the means to pay the £50,000 as the first instalment of the lump sum, and that he has refused or neglected to do so”.
