Scottsdale crooner Lou Rawls spent the last month and a half of his life trying to get a Maricopa County Superior Court judge to void his two-year marriage to his wife.
The singer, who died Jan. 6 in California, claimed in court papers that Nina Rawls wed him with the intent of taking his assets. That, he said, made the marriage invalid in the first place.
But Rawls died before the trial, which had been set for March. In fact, Rawls anticipated his own death: His lawyers filed an emergency request to take a deposition before he died so that the question of the validity of the marriage — and, by extension, the rights to his estate — could be resolved posthumously.
Nina Rawls estimated in a court affidavit that the company they formed nets about $2 million a year.
Whether that trial will go ahead now is in doubt: Alona Gottfried, attorney for Nina Rawls, filed a notice last week saying that Rawls had called her client, said he was unaware that his attorneys had sought annulment.
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But Rawls himself signed a sworn affidavit on Dec. 13 that he had seen the emergency request to take his deposition. And Timothy Thomason, one of Lou Rawls' lawyers, on Wednesday called the contention that Rawls did not know of the annulment proceedings "absolutely untrue.''
And Rawls' attorneys have not filed anything in court showing that he agreed to dismissal before he died, two days after his wife's reconciliation notice was filed.
The court papers paint a picture of problems that had been going on for months.
In her own affidavit, Nina Rawls said her husband had been "physically abusive'' to her during the marriage.
Even before they were wed, she said, he was arrested in New Mexico on abuse charges.
Then last April he broke her cheekbone and wrist, she continued, with another incident two weeks later when he hit her in the head with a knife sharpener. "I loved Lou and did not want him to go to prison, so I never cooperated with the prosecution,'' she said.
A month later, during an exam for his lung cancer, doctors discovered he had terminal brain cancer.
Gottfried, in a motion to have a mental and physical examination of Lou Rawls, said his cognitive abilities apparently were "greatly diminished.''
But Rawls' lawyers, in a Dec. 14 court filing, said that his wife "exploited'' his illness and "converted a large amount of Mr. Rawls' assets for her own personal use.''
