“Love is something ideal, while marriage is something real, and the confusion of the ideal with the real never goes unpunished,” Wolfgang Goethe said, a quote that fits the case of Pavlos Vardinoyannis and Gina Alimonou.

Their fairytale marriage that lasted ten years ended with a separation that was anything but velvety for the businessman and actress, who became embroiled in a bitter dispute.

Nearly eight years after their final separation, the two exes still meet frequently in courtrooms trading accusations, while counting out-of-court settlements, injunctions, lawsuits and more than ten trials.

One of the most significant court battles involving the former couple’s four children has finally been settled in Gina Alimonou’s favour after four trials, after the Supreme Court returned the case back to the Court of Appeal.

The businessman had accused his wife of illegally keeping their children in Greece and invoked the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction when she refused to return with them to the US, where they were permanently residing, after their last summer vacation together in Greece.

On another legal front, Pavlos Vardinoyannis had accused his ex-wife of promiscuity, citing witnesses from his entourage, seeking to prove that she was an unfit mother for their children in order to get custody of them.

Gina Alimonou responded with a lawsuit against him for defamation and the businessman was convicted in the first and second degree and sentenced to prison for inciting witness perjury. The next court episode is expected soon, as the ex-husband is again seeking joint custody of their four children, in a dispute that those with knowledge of the case say will be a long time coming.

Vindication for the children

When a break in the couple’s relationship occurred in 2017, Gina Alimonou refused to return with their children to America, prompting an immediate reaction from her then-husband who sent a warning letter urging her to return to the US. Developments were tumultuous in the weeks that followed, with an exchange of out-of-court letters and injunctions between the two sides followed by the businessman’s divorce suit against Gina Alimonou.

Since then, the legal dispute between the two exes has “flared up” for good, especially regarding the custody of their four children, who became the apple of discord between the former couple. Pavlos Vardinoyannis interpreted Gina Alimonou’s refusal to return to the US with the children as a move to which he had to respond immediately. In a special petition, he invoked the Hague Convention on Minor Children and accused his then-wife of international kidnapping and illegal detention of their four minor children.

Both the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal upheld the former model and rejected the businessman’s claim, who went to the Supreme Court seeking to have the children taken by him. The country’s highest court overturned the Court of Appeal’s decision in its entirety and returned the case for a retrial, which took place on December 3 last year.

According to the now final ruling, “there is a serious risk that the return of the four minor children to America would expose them to mental distress and leave them in an intolerable situation.” In the reasoning of the decision, it is noted that due to Pavlos Vardinoyannis’ extensive business activity and constant travels, “he has never been actively involved in the upbringing and care of his children to date, and entrusting the supervision and care of them during his working hours to random persons unknown to the aforementioned minor children would, according to the rules of reason, inflict a severe blow to their mental health.”

According to the judgment, all of the above also resulted “from taking into account the opinion of the minor children of the parties, who now possess the required maturity due to their age, who categorically and voluntarily refuse their requested return (to the United States) expressing fear that they will be taken over exclusively by nannies and assistants and will be separated from their mother to whom they are emotionally attached.”

Based on all of the above, the Court of Appeal dismissed Pavlos Vardinoyannis’ application as unfounded, vindicating Gina Alimonou definitively in this matter. In the near future, however, the ex-wife will again be confronted with the businessman who insists on wanting joint custody of their four children. A co-custody that resulted in litigation in which a lot of bad things were said about the former model from her ex-husband’s side. Alimonou responded with a lawsuit accusing a housekeeper of false testimony and him of libel and perpetrating perjury of a witness.

The Decision

The Fifth Trial Court sat on June 27 last year to hear Alimonou’s lawsuit against her ex-husband and a former domestic worker, after two adjournments of the case. Pavlos Vardinoyannis did not attend the hearing of the case and was represented by his lawyer who requested an adjournment but the court rejected his request, while his ex-wife was normally present.

The businessman accused her of promiscuity having the former domestic help as a witness. About this woman the actress pointed out among other things: ‘She mentions that when she met me I was a drug addict and alcoholic, that I was drinking from early morning and she would come home and find substances and empty bottles and it is during this time that I explained to you that I had a terrible job in television. At least fifteen hours a day.”

For this particular case, Alimonou gave a urine sample at irregular hours for months, as well as a DNA sample from her hair, which was sent to three specialized centers abroad that collaborate with the AUTH. As she pointed out in her testimony, she went to Germany, Strasbourg, France and Bern, Switzerland for this test. All came out negative, while the housekeeper who accused her of being indifferent to her four children, leaving them dirty, abusing them and talking to witches did not appear in court.

The former model and actress was quoted in detail about the woman, who began working at the residence her husband kept in central Athens in 2006. The housekeeper left and came back twice more, and according to Alimonou, in 2016 when the crisis that led to the divorce began, her role at home was now different. “She stopped doing anything and was basically looking at what was going on in the house, we had started court proceedings with my ex-husband, she was basically admonishing the other servants how to behave.”

Over time, this woman’s behavior changed drastically, according to the testimony of Pavlos Vardinoyannis’ ex-wife. “She began to insult me slowly in front of my children, saying to me ‘what kind of mother are you?’, ‘you are not a good mother’. One time I even called 911 for a domestic disturbance where we went over there and I said the lady is insulting me badly… she started saying that I was calling her bad words and hitting her…”

Finally, she claimed that her children never had a good relationship with this woman who, according to what she told the court, also tried to convince a kindergarten teacher to testify against her. “The girl refused, she said I don’t want to get involved…and of course she despaired after a while. She said come on, give the statement and she’ll take custody and I’ll raise the children.”

The court sentenced the housekeeper to two years in prison and a fine of 3,000 euros for making a false statement and Pavlos Vardinoyannis to two years in prison and a fine of three thousand euros for inciting a false statement.
Both appealed against the verdict while the prosecutor proposed to suspend the execution of the prison sentence, which the court accepted.