How does a man once worth an estimated $10 million find himself broke, in divorce court, donning a jail uniform and begging his ex-wife for money? Well, with any luck, he wouldn't. But it doesn't seem that luck has been on the side of 72-year-old Ronald Miserendino lately.

After leaving his first wife and their six children on the east coast, Miserendino moved to Milwaukee. It was there that he met his second wife, Cynthia Son, when she came and applied for the job of his housekeeper. Within six months they were married and they had three children in four years. Wow, these kids moved kind fast.

In 2001, after 22 years of marriage, Cynthia filed for divorce and that's where Miserendino's problems seem to have began.

He refused to accept the service of his divorce papers, and with the help of his son, Mark, set out to secretly liquidate his company's assets and go underground.

The effort involved taking out a bank loan for $5 million, a $500,000 advance on the company's line of credit, and cashing in Treasury bonds worth more than $10 million, according to court records. Miserendino then gave the $5 million from the bank loan to his son. Mark got smaller cashier's checks and sent them to his father, who was secretly in Hawaii, where his company owned a house and two lots.

The divorce was granted and courts awarded Cynthia $5 million, but the money was gone.

In November 2005, after living with a girlfriend secretly in Hawaii and failing in an attempt at bankruptcy, Miserendino moved back to the mainland, where he was quickly arrested when his federal warrant showed up during a routine traffic stop. He is still awaiting sentencing.

Men receiving alimony want a little respect, says the title of an article in today's Wall Street Journal. Its been nearly 30 years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against gender discrimination with regard to alimony, and divorce experts say that fewer and fewer men are outright rejecting any talk of seeking alimony.

In fact, the percentage of alimony recipients who are male rose from 3.6% during the five years ending in 2006, up from 2.4%, in the previous five year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

They say that percentage is likely to rise as more and more marriages feature a primary earner who is female. In 2005, which is the last year for which data is available, wives out earned their husbands in 33% of all families, up an incredible 28.2% a decade earlier.

Today's men are receiving alimony for the classic reasons that women traditionally do and did. The most common argument: They sacrificed their careers for the sake of their wives'.

Some feminists say that this shows progress of some sort. "We can't assert rights for women and say that men aren't entitled to the same rights," says famous feminist lawyer Gloria Allred.

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Baby Phat fashion designer Kimora Lee Simmons and entertainment mogul Russell Simmons broke it off two years ago in March 2006, but until recently neither had filed for divorce. They have however moved on, as Kimora has already been dating actor Djimon Honsou for quite some time.

Perhaps it was that fact that finally provoked Kimora to file for divorce on Tuesday in a Los Angeles court.

Kimora and Russell were married for seven years and have two daughters 8-year-old Ming Lee and 5-year-old Aoki Lee. It doesn't appear though that we'll be seeing any Britney vs. K-Fed style custody battles out of these two as in the papers filed she requested that Russell be granted, "reasonable child visitation ... accompanied at all times by the children's nanny and security personnel."

But what have they been doing for the past two years? Click here for more.

Terrell and Martina Grier's divorce proceedings should have taken 18 months or less. Instead, it took a little over four years. After shelling out years' worth of legal fees, both parties walked away with out a home or cars and drained their retirement accounts, according to court records.

Who's to blame? The courts, where the case was passed to two judges and at least 10 continuances were granted, surely didn't help. Terrell Grier says it is his ex's attorney that drew it out; Martina's attorney says it was actually Terrell. (Sounds like these two need some couples therapy.)

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We reported last week that Kevin Federline's attorneys were requesting Britney Spears (seen here, during the good old days) to cover her ex's legal woes — to the tune of $405,000. That's in addition to the $685,000 she owes her own lawyers. Ouch.

Spears has, in fact, been ordered to pay K-Fed's lawyer, Mark Kaplan, $375,000. Double ouch.

Better get back into the recording studio real quick, Brit.

We're wondering if this is fair. Yes, she initiated the divorce, but would Federline have sat quietly has the happy husband had she not filed? Well, maybe, if the bank account buffet was open 24 hours. Federline turned out to be the smarter (and saner) of the two...

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The high court has ruled: Heather Mills will receive close to $50 million from ex Paul McCartney.

Although previous reports had Mills considering appealing the ruling, this morning she told reporters she was, "so, so happy" with the outcome.

We would be, too.

The former couple's child, Beatrice, will also receive $70K a year, and McCartney will be responsible for nanny and school expenses.

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Apparently, K-Fed, Britney Spears' ex, is a generous tipper.

According to attorneys for Spears, if Kevin Federline can tip a waitress $2,000, he can afford to pay his own legal bills. And boy are those bills mounting: K-Fed is looking at a $405,000 legal tab that he thinks his ex should pay.

Spears' new attorney Stacy Phillips told a court commissioner that Federline should pay between $150,000 and $175,000. She alleges that K-Fed omitted his $200,000 spousal-support checks from his earning declarations. Phillips also alleges that Federline recently tipped a waitress $2,000 on a $365 bill, and spent $20,000 on jewelry, phone calls and food while listing the charges as "business expenses."

Naturally, K-Fed's attorney says Spears should keep writing the checks. Spears' old law firm Trope and Trope reportedly charged her $630,000 for four months' work, while Federline's portion of the bill from his attorney was about $250,000 less.

These legal fees are mind-blowing but when you consider that attorneys, all kinds, routinely make $500 an hour, not including the hefty retainers they receive at the get-go....well, it's not unfathomable to see how quickly celebrity divorce cases hit the million dollar mark.

We're waiting to see what happens in the Mills/McCartney ruling, supposedly scheduled for March 17. And now, we're waiting with bated breath for the Spitzers to split; the New York Governor, in case you haven't heard, was caught up in a prostitution ring. Eliot Spitzer comes from a wealthy family but it's Silda who earned the big bucks as a high-powered corporate attorney. We'll wait and see...

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Former Baywatch hunk David Hasselhoff has won a court order to return to his family home to retrieve certain possessions that were apparently worth, to him, an extra few visits to court.

So, what couldn't the Hoff live without?

Among the items listed were: an antique barber's chair, an ivory tusk, a statue of a dolphin, a model elephant, and some baseball memorabilia. I guess he already has his Baywatch float in his new digs.

Hoff and his ex Pamela Bach's divorce was settled in December, tying up loose ends like spousal and child support, and custody issues of the couple's two daughters. The two share custody, though any monetary details of the split were not released.

I suppose this is just more evidence of boys becoming rather attached to their toys.

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(Photo: AP)

Heather Mills, the ex-wife of former Beatle Paul McCartney, is just a little richer today, having scored a $108 million dollar settlement after a week-long battle in a British court.

The Daily Mail newspaper also reports that Mills will receive a lump sum of $40 million with another $5 million a year after the couple's daughter Beatrice, 4, turns 18.

The newspaper reports that the whopper settlement represents just a fraction of McCartney's fortune.

Originally, Mills asked for up to $160 million.

The Mills/McCartney nasty divorce began in May 2006; Mills is the primary caretaker of the couple's daughter but both parents have equal visitation.

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With Valentine's Day coming up, every form of media is full of images of people getting engaged or married and the jewelry stores are obviously doing big business. But for the large segment of the population that is divorced, it's an entirely different thought process when it comes to wedding and engagement rings. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting story on Friday about the question of what should happen to your rings once your marriage is over.

The accepted protocol on engagement rings seems to be that you get to keep it. Legally, it's not considered part of the marital assets because it was a gift given to you before you were married. And aside from that, a guy would have to really be a greedy bastard to ask to have it back. I can see a guy doing that, though, if the ring was a family heirloom. I think I'd have a hard time holding on to the engagement ring if it had belonged to my ex's grandmother, or something like that.

The wedding rings are a whole different story. Some people attach a lot of emotional meaning to them and choose not to part with them. Some people have them melted down and made into other pieces of jewelry. Some women sell both the wedding and engagement rings to pay for lawyers. One man quoted in the story said his wife sold her rings so she could get a boob job.

I think it's all a matter of personal preference. And it's probably a function of how amicable the breakup is, too. If it was angry and bitter, you might be more inclined to get rid of the rings, along with everything else in your house that had anything to do with the guy. One woman said she wanted both of the wedding rings to be kept together after her divorce, just because it seemed to her like the right thing to do. Her ex didn't see it that way, so it didn't happen.

So let's hear from all of you. What happened to your rings?