Swinger Loses Wife, Files Lawsuit, Wins $5,000

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Swinger wins lawsuit against man he let sleep with his wife

July 1, 2007
By Steve Patterson Special to the Daily Southtown
After 10 years of marriage, Arthur Friedman told his wife they needed to spice things up a bit, that their sex life was too boring, she said.

The Northbrook man wanted to begin having sex with other couples and wanted to watch his wife, Natalie, have sex with other men and women, she said.

But along the way, Natalie Friedman, 35, wound up falling for one of the men she had sex with in her effort to please her husband, also 35.

Arthur Friedman decided that was crossing the line. He sued German Blinov under the state's alienation-of-affection law, claiming that the Glenview man stole his wife's love away.

Illinois is one of only eight states where such a case can still be filed. They rarely are, and when they are, they're usually thrown out.

But last week, a Cook County jury heard Friedman's case and awarded him $4,802.87 -- derived from a formula that considered, in part, Natalie's contributions to the household for a period of time. The Friedmans are divorcing. German and his wife, Inessa, have divorced.

"This guy ruined my life; he backstabbed me," Arthur Friedman said. "What he did was wrong. And I did what I had to do to get my point across."

Arthur Friedman denied that he had sex with anyone else, though Natalie Friedman described their trysts in detail -- including four-way sex in a hot tub with Blinov and another woman.

"That's what he said would keep our marriage going," she said in an interview. "That was exciting to him. Then he cries about losing his love? When I'm having sex with another person?"

Blinov doesn't deny having a relationship with Natalie while she was married, but he was stunned to learn that he could be sued for that.

Natalie Friedman said it wasn't Blinov who caused her to stop loving her husband -- it was Arthur Friedman and the humiliating things he made her do in the name of love.

"German was not the cause of this," she said. "I stopped loving Arthur. He made me do all these things. How could he say he loved me? If he'd been such a great husband, wouldn't he protect me instead of making me do these things?"

But Friedman convinced jurors that Blinov was the cause, though jury foreman Eric Heisig, of Palatine, said jurors "way more than once" said "this is stupid."

"The statute is ridiculous," Heisig said.

Katharine K. Baker, an associate dean at Chicago Kent School of Law who has written extensively about family law, said few states allow such cases because the laws they're based on are archaic.

But even where allowed, they're rare because "they assume the main focus of the suit has no decision-making ability. And that's pretty insulting," Baker said.

Friedman had to prove there was love between him and his wife until Blinov took it away. Yet even his attorney, David Shults, conceded that "it's kind of remarkable" that the case wasn't dismissed earlier.

"Oftentimes, it's both people's fault when there's a breakdown in a marriage," Shults said. "There often isn't that one catalyst that we had here."

Blinov was no catalyst, his attorney, Enrico Mirabelli, said, and "this type of lawsuit is not designed to be a vehicle for vengeance or vindication. Sadly, in this case, it was used for both."

But Arthur Friedman said he had no idea his wife was unhappy in their relationship. And when Natalie began working out at the gym owned by Blinov and his now ex-wife, Arthur said, they all quickly became friends.

"German was not a pirate of her affections," Mirabelli said. "Her affections were already adrift."

Jurors disagreed, even though Heisig said many of them wanted to give Arthur Friedman nothing -- or $17.20, the amount they got for each day served.

"This case was never about the money," another of Arthur's attorneys, David Nemeroff, said. "This was about vindicating Arthur for what German did to him and to his family."

Natalie Friedman said hearing dollar values tossed about was humiliating.

"This law allowed him to put a price tag on me," she said. "That hurts more than anything."

Chicago Sun-Times