By Scott Smith
Record Staff Writer
Recordnet.com (Stockton, Calif., USA)
STOCKTON - Sokhanary Ouch thought her marriage was bona fide, even though the nuptial vows she and her husband exchanged years ago in the war-torn Cambodia were less than fairy-tale.
There were no blushed faces and flowery bouquets Oct. 15, 1978, when Ouch and her husband, Saroeun Sok, were paired by Pol Pot's ruthless Khmer Rouge regime and married alongside 100 other couples.
Sok now argues in papers filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court that a marriage never existed, and he wants the union dissolved, despite 26 years together, three children and having fled Southeast Asia. The couple eventually came to Stockton.
Ouch's attorney, Albert Ellis, said Sok's odd tactic is an attempt to avoid child and spousal support. In nearly 30 years of brokering divorces, Ellis said he has never seen a case like this, delving into the dark past of Cambodia's "killing fields."
"It's no doubt that was one of the worst periods in world history, next to the Nazis and Genghis Khan," Ellis said, discrediting Sok's case. "He's hiding behind the Pol Pot regime."
Sok's San Francisco attorney, Crisostomo Ibarra, declined to comment, saying through a spokesman that he was waiting for permission from his client. Sok is a former San Joaquin General Hospital physician who has since moved back to Cambodia.
At stake for Sok is thousands of dollars in spousal and child support he might have to pay Ouch and their 16-year-old daughter. Their two other children are grown. Sok used to pay more than $150,000 a year, according to court papers.
The case awaits a decision by Superior Court Judge Robin Appel.
In arguing the union was never a valid marriage, Ibarra said in court papers that his client and Ouch were among a group ordered at gunpoint to face each other for the marriage.
Pol Pot's regime in the late 1970s married off 210,000 couples to remove power from families, which formed the economic and cultural fabric of Cambodian society.
While workers at labor camps were coupled to reproduce, the upper-class elite were slaughtered - including anybody who wore eyeglasses or had an education. This cut the communist country's ties to the bourgeoisie and Western influences.
The Khmer Rouge regime was later overthrown, and couples had three years beginning in 2002 to register their marriages with the new government, which Sok and Ouch never did. They had moved to the United States in 1980, first to Oregon and then California.
Ibarra further argues that those two states don't recognize common-law marriage, in which a couple can be legally married without ever obtaining a license.
"The fact that the parties lived together after being forced to cohabitate, the fact that it worked out and they had children ... does not make this forced cohabitation a valid marriage," Ibarra said in court papers.
They "were told by the Khmer Rouge at gunpoint that they would procreate with each other," Ibarra said.
Yet Ellis describes quite a different relationship. He recognized the brutal regime but said Ouch and Sok chose each other. Ellis called a woman to testify in the case who was also married at the mass ceremony. She confirmed the young romance, Ellis said.
"The reality is that my client and Dr. Sok were very much in love, as were many other couples there," Ellis said.
Sondra Roeuny, a University of the Pacific administrator and leader in Stockton's Cambodian community, said the forced unions in some respects resembled arranged marriages family elders orchestrated for thousands of years in Cambodia.
The difference was that in arranged marriages, relatives forged ties among families, while in forced marriages the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy the culture, she said, adding that it's difficult to say where romances might have budded.
"It's only for those two individuals involved to say," Roeuny said.
Sok has little chance for a courtroom victory, said Glee Scully, a law professor at University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, who specializes in family law. She agreed to comment on the case but didn't know about it independently.
She said marriages in California used to be rooted in the rules at the time and place a couple got married. That has become confused by recent objections to same-sex marriages, Scully said.
In California, marriages can be dissolved if one person was forced into it, Scully said, citing a case in which a man threatened to beat a woman and her children if she didn't accept his proposal.
The catch is that, by law, you have four years from the date of the marriage to challenge it, she said.
"It's a nice try, I suppose," she said, adding that Ouch's bigger problem could be collecting money from Sok in Cambodia.
Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com.
There were no blushed faces and flowery bouquets Oct. 15, 1978, when Ouch and her husband, Saroeun Sok, were paired by Pol Pot's ruthless Khmer Rouge regime and married alongside 100 other couples.
Sok now argues in papers filed in San Joaquin County Superior Court that a marriage never existed, and he wants the union dissolved, despite 26 years together, three children and having fled Southeast Asia. The couple eventually came to Stockton.
Ouch's attorney, Albert Ellis, said Sok's odd tactic is an attempt to avoid child and spousal support. In nearly 30 years of brokering divorces, Ellis said he has never seen a case like this, delving into the dark past of Cambodia's "killing fields."
"It's no doubt that was one of the worst periods in world history, next to the Nazis and Genghis Khan," Ellis said, discrediting Sok's case. "He's hiding behind the Pol Pot regime."
Sok's San Francisco attorney, Crisostomo Ibarra, declined to comment, saying through a spokesman that he was waiting for permission from his client. Sok is a former San Joaquin General Hospital physician who has since moved back to Cambodia.
At stake for Sok is thousands of dollars in spousal and child support he might have to pay Ouch and their 16-year-old daughter. Their two other children are grown. Sok used to pay more than $150,000 a year, according to court papers.
The case awaits a decision by Superior Court Judge Robin Appel.
In arguing the union was never a valid marriage, Ibarra said in court papers that his client and Ouch were among a group ordered at gunpoint to face each other for the marriage.
Pol Pot's regime in the late 1970s married off 210,000 couples to remove power from families, which formed the economic and cultural fabric of Cambodian society.
While workers at labor camps were coupled to reproduce, the upper-class elite were slaughtered - including anybody who wore eyeglasses or had an education. This cut the communist country's ties to the bourgeoisie and Western influences.
The Khmer Rouge regime was later overthrown, and couples had three years beginning in 2002 to register their marriages with the new government, which Sok and Ouch never did. They had moved to the United States in 1980, first to Oregon and then California.
Ibarra further argues that those two states don't recognize common-law marriage, in which a couple can be legally married without ever obtaining a license.
"The fact that the parties lived together after being forced to cohabitate, the fact that it worked out and they had children ... does not make this forced cohabitation a valid marriage," Ibarra said in court papers.
They "were told by the Khmer Rouge at gunpoint that they would procreate with each other," Ibarra said.
Yet Ellis describes quite a different relationship. He recognized the brutal regime but said Ouch and Sok chose each other. Ellis called a woman to testify in the case who was also married at the mass ceremony. She confirmed the young romance, Ellis said.
"The reality is that my client and Dr. Sok were very much in love, as were many other couples there," Ellis said.
Sondra Roeuny, a University of the Pacific administrator and leader in Stockton's Cambodian community, said the forced unions in some respects resembled arranged marriages family elders orchestrated for thousands of years in Cambodia.
The difference was that in arranged marriages, relatives forged ties among families, while in forced marriages the Khmer Rouge tried to destroy the culture, she said, adding that it's difficult to say where romances might have budded.
"It's only for those two individuals involved to say," Roeuny said.
Sok has little chance for a courtroom victory, said Glee Scully, a law professor at University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, who specializes in family law. She agreed to comment on the case but didn't know about it independently.
She said marriages in California used to be rooted in the rules at the time and place a couple got married. That has become confused by recent objections to same-sex marriages, Scully said.
In California, marriages can be dissolved if one person was forced into it, Scully said, citing a case in which a man threatened to beat a woman and her children if she didn't accept his proposal.
The catch is that, by law, you have four years from the date of the marriage to challenge it, she said.
"It's a nice try, I suppose," she said, adding that Ouch's bigger problem could be collecting money from Sok in Cambodia.
Contact reporter Scott Smith at (209) 546-8296 or ssmith@recordnet.com.
5 comments:
Twenty six years of marriage and live together.
Doctor "Do Little" have just wakeened up from sleep declaring invalid.
Thousands and thuosands of marriage couples divorced or separated different ways right after Pol Pot collapsed. I myself did back then rather than waiting for 20 years plus.
Dr. "Do Little" your eyes caught beautiful and pretty women in Cambodia. Aren't you?
Hmm ... sounds like someone founds
his dream on a new Blueburry hill
alright.
hahahahhaah! i agreee! dam old man!
hehe!
Dumb and dumber,
You only have two years to pay for child support, don't you love your daughter, anyway?
How are you going to get the payment from him now that he is in Cambodia with Sak See Sbaoung...
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