Runaway Bride Sues Ex-fiance For $500,000

Runaway Bride Sues Ex-fiance For $500,000,2006 –  The “runaway bride,” who took off days before her lavish wedding in 2005, is suing her former fiance for $500,000, claiming he defrauded her out of her share of their assets.

Jennifer Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says John C. Mason purchased through the partnership with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York.

She also wants $250,000 in punitive damages for alleged abuse of the power of attorney she granted for Mason to handle their financial affairs.

In addition, letters included as exhibits in the lawsuit show that the former couple has been in dispute over personal property Wilbanks claims Mason has kept. The items include a ladder that belonged to her father, a gold-colored sofa, a new vacuum cleaner and wedding shower gifts. Mason’s attorney wrote to Wilbanks’ attorney in July that his client had agreed to deliver those items. The court filings do not show whether the items were returned.

Why Runaway Bride Jennifer Wilbanks Ran Got Cold Feet

Why Runaway Bride Jennifer Wilbanks Ran Got Cold Feet, The runaway bride case was the case of Jennifer Carol Wilbanks (born March 1, 1973), an American woman who ran away from home on April 26, 2005, in order to avoid her wedding with John Mason, her fiancé, on April 30.

Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia, sparked a nationwide search and intensive media coverage, including some media speculation that Mason had killed her. On April 29, Wilbanks called Mason from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and falsely claimed that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic male and a white woman.

Wilbanks gained notoriety in the United States and internationally, and her story persisted as a major topic of national news coverage for some time after she was found and her safety was assured. Many critics of the mass media attacked this as a “media circus”. Howard Kurtz, an influential media critic for the Washington Post and CNN-TV, wrote that the runaway bride had become a “runaway television embarrassment,” and he compared the story to a TV soap opera.

Wilbanks’s repeating of the false claims to investigating police officers resulted in a felony indictment against her of giving false information to the police, a charge that could have resulted in up to five years of imprisonment. On June 2, 2005, Wilbanks pleaded no contest to this charge. As part of her plea bargain, she was sentenced to two years of probation and 120 hours of community service, and she was also ordered to pay $2,250 in restitution to the Gwinnett County Sheriff’s Department. Also as part of the plea bargain, a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report was dismissed. Wilbanks’s criminal record was expunged after she successfully completed her period of probation.