Outback Founders Battling Divorce and Paternity Cases

By JEFF TESTERMAN
St. Petersburg Times

TAMPA -- Since founding Outback Steakhouse 16 years ago, Chris T. Sullivan and Robert D. Basham have enjoyed remarkable success. They have amassed personal wealth, gained political influence and earned respect for their civic involvement and charitable giving.

In affairs of the heart, the road has been much bumpier.

Sullivan, 56, Outback's chairman, ended his third marriage a year ago and is now embroiled in a paternity case involving a daughter born in July to Anna Cladakis, 35, the Clearwater promotional director for Hooter's restaurants.

Cladakis seeks $186,922 for the first year of the life of her infant daughter, Charitsa. The money would provide $11,000 a month in support and pay for everything from a baptism party to a nannycam security system.

"He's never seen the child. It's sad. It's a shame," Cladakis said. "But I want my daughter to enjoy the same lifestyle as if she were in Chris Sullivan's arms."

Sullivan, now paying $5,000 a month in temporary support, is balking at paying more. His lawyer, David Maney, calls Cladakis' demands "ludicrous" and says she has inflated her support requests to "feather her own nest."

Basham, 57, president and chief operating officer of the 1,100-restaurant Outback chain, is in the 24th month of a divorce action brought by his second wife, Beth. The Bashams are battling for custody of their three children as well as money -- lots of it. 

At the center of the case is a prenuptial agreement Mrs. Basham signed a day before the couple's marriage in 1988. She says she signed under duress and has asked a judge to void the agreement.

If Mrs. Basham, 44, prevails, she could be awarded marital assets in excess of $100 million. But if the agreement is upheld, the agreement says she is to receive a new car, half the couple's furniture and $125,000 in cash.

As she prepares for a hearing on the matter, her husband is seeking records on a man who came between him and his wife -- former Hillsborough County Sheriff's Major Rocky Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, 48, resigned from the Hillsborough sheriff's office last year. Once considered the heir apparent to Sheriff Cal Henderson, Rodriguez fell from favor after becoming involved with a felon who ran a failed flower importation scheme. But the coup de grace for Rodriguez's 25-year career came when the sheriff discovered $6,007 in calls Rodriguez had made on his department-issued cell phone in conversations with Mrs. Basham in less than four months.

Basham is paying his wife $32,000 a month in support, but objects to any of the money being used for Rodriguez, court papers say.

The growing family law files of Sullivan and Basham reflect two trends -- an increase in prenuptial agreements as more wealthy spouses seek to protect assets and a rise in paternity claims because of better genetic testing.

"I think paternity cases are increasing because of the certainty of testing now," said Jane C. Murphy, a professor who specializes in family law at the University of Baltimore Law School. "There are now tens of thousands of these cases a year that are spread across the economic spectrum.

Most involve poor parents, Murphy said, but the public most often remembers high-profile cases involving business tycoons or millionaire sports figures.

CLADAKIS V. SULLIVAN

Cladakis says she has known Sullivan for 14 years and dated him for a short time before she became pregnant in mid-October 2003, according to court records.

At the time, Sullivan had been separated from his third wife, Lesa Caryn Griffin, for more than a month. 

Cladakis is a Tarpon Springs High graduate who has handled promotions for Hooters for more than a decade. She has a record of arrests on charges of ticket scalping, shoplifting and battery on an ex-boyfriend. None of those arrests resulted in a formal finding of guilt on her record.

In her relationship with Sullivan, Cladakis said marriage was "a possibility in the beginning," but soon appeared out of the question. Cladakis filed her paternity action in Hillsborough Circuit Court in February.

After Sullivan denied paternity, a judge ordered a DNA test of the unborn child through amniocentesis. The test determined within a certainty of 99.999 percent that Sullivan was the father. Sullivan objected, saying amniocentesis was unreliable.

Last July, two weeks after Charitsa was born, a second DNA test was ordered, this one through the highly regarded DNA Diagnostics Center in Fairfield, Ohio. The second test came back with a 99.9999 percent certainty that Sullivan was the father.

That left the matter of support.

Cladakis is hardly impoverished. She lives in a $510,400 home, made $55,515 last year and shows a net worth of $621,321, records show.

Sullivan, on the other hand, has income of $2.18 million a year, a worth in excess of

$153 million and has established trusts of $2 million apiece for each of his two grown children from his first marriage, records say.

Despite those numbers, Sullivan has challenged the expenses Cladakis lists for the baby.

In court papers, lawyer Maney called the $4,580 expense for a christening party "shocking." He said the request for $900 a month for clothing for the baby is "absurd." He characterized the request for $310 a month for the child's entertainment as "an inflated, ridiculous number." Of the $115 a month requested for private lessons, Maney replied, "Little babies do not take private lessons.

Sullivan, who did not return calls for comment, will try mediation to reach an agreement with Cladakis on support. Failing that, the couple will end up on opposite sides of a courtroom in a trial next year.

BASHAM V. BASHAM

In the Basham divorce case, a fortune is at stake.

In an initial disclosure, Robert Basham said his 2001 income was $2.23 million. He pegged his net worth at $135.5 million. His financial statement lists nine bank accounts, 75 investment accounts, 10 corporations, six luxury cars and 10 properties -- from a $5.66 million marital home in South Tampa to vacation homes in Washington, D.C., and Virginia.

Mrs. Basham, through her lawyer, Ronald J. Russo, maintains her husband has annual earnings in excess of $5 million and assets worth more than $275 million.

Basham says his wife is not entitled to split those assets with him because of the prenuptial agreement she signed on May 6, 1988, the day before the couple wed. At the time, he had assets of about $3.35 million, records show. 

Mrs. Basham says she was pregnant and was told by the groom-to-be that if she failed to sign, the wedding was off. She says she was told she did not need to consult with a lawyer.

Neither of the Bashams could be reached for comment.

Murphy, the Baltimore law professor, said Mrs. Basham's pregnancy, the suddenness with which the prenup was presented to her, and the lack of counsel available to her are factors that may have contributed to a "coercive atmosphere."

"These are all elements that suggest she signed under duress and which could make the prenup unenforceable," Murphy said.

But if the agreement is set aside, the fault for ending the marriage could come into play and affect alimony, Murphy said.

That could explain why Basham is seeking sheriff's records that would reveal, among other things, Rodriguez's relationship with Ronald Roth, the felon who had the investment company called the Flower Pit.

According to Rodriguez's lawyer, Norman Cannella, Roth "fleeced" local investors of an estimated $2 million in what was supposed to be a lucrative business of importing of Costa Rican flowers to sell to Rose Parade promoters and others.

Rodriguez wrote investment checks for $24,000 of his own money to Roth, unaware that Roth had once been sentenced to a four-year prison term in Missouri for writing bad checks, Cannella said.

When other investors began to complain, Roth became an informant for the FBI, promising he could deliver Rodriguez and others on corruption charges, records show. But the federal investigation fell apart without charges against Rodriguez or anyone else. Roth disappeared.

Basham's lawyer also is seeking documents related to a local charity, the Make-a-Wish Foundation, where Rodriguez and Mrs. Basham met as directors and began their romantic relationship.

Roth, 46, was arrested on a warrant by U.S. Customs agents in September 2003 as he re-entered the country. Two months ago, he was convicted of federal bank fraud in New York stemming from his deposit of counterfeit checks totaling $570,000. Roth began serving a 46-month sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution at Fort Dix, N.J., last month.

Last week, Cannella said he understands that Rodriguez's relationship with Mrs. Basham is "history."

Rodriguez, reached at Tropical Surveillance, the investigative company he now runs, declined to to discuss the Basham divorce.

"No comment, buddy," he said. "No comment."