Amid Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's ongoing custody battle, Pitt's legal team is accusing the actress of making a "Hail Mary" effort to prolong their case.
Jolie asked last week that the private judge overseeing their divorce be disqualified from the case because of insufficient disclosures of his business relationships with one of Pitt's attorneys.
In new legal documents obtained by USA TODAY, Pitt's lawyers pushed back against Jolie's request to remove Judge John W. Ouderkirk, who has worked with the former couple several times before – including presiding over their 2014 wedding – two months before the custody trial is scheduled to begin.
"Against this backdrop, Jolie's abrupt cry of judicial bias reeks of bad faith and desperation, not to mention careless disregard for the procedural rules intended to root out legitimately conflicted judicial officers," Pitt's legal response read.
USA TODAY has reached out to Jolie's attorney for comment. Pitt's representative declined comment.
Jolie previously argued that Ouderkirk should be taken off the divorce case she filed in 2016 because he disclosed too late that he was hired for other cases involving Pitt attorney Anne C. Kiley and did not provide enough information about those cases.
Previously: Angelina Jolie asks for private judge to be removed in Brad Pitt divorce case
Pitt's legal team maintains that the fact was "fully disclosed to Jolie" ahead of time, referring to her request as a "thinly-veiled attempt ... to delay the adjudication of long-pending custody issues in this case." Ouderkirk, the legal filing argues, has followed "all standard ethical practices and rules" and has "repeatedly disclosed all information about which Jolie now feigns surprise."
Pitt and Jolie were declared divorced, and "Pitt" was dropped from her name, in April 2019, after their lawyers asked for a bifurcated judgment, meaning that two married people can be declared single while other issues, including finances and child custody, remain.
Because most of the documents have been sealed, it is not clear what issues remain unresolved, but Jolie filed papers in 2018 saying Pitt wasn’t paying sufficient child support, which his attorneys disputed, calling the filing an effort to manipulate media coverage of the split.
Jolie, 45, and Pitt, 56, were a couple for 12 years and married for two when Jolie filed for divorce in 2016. They have six children: Maddox, 19, Pax, 16, Zahara, 15, Shiloh, 14, and Vivienne and Knox, both 12.
Contributing: The Associated Press
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