Domi's wife takes divorce public (bizarre: ape-like hockey goon & Liberal princess Belinda Stronach)

Domi's wife takes divorce public
In interview, Leanne Domi says the `facts are facts' about Tie and Belinda

Toronto red Star
Sep. 26, 2006. 01:00 AM

ROSIE DIMANNO, STAR COLUMNIST

All the world's a sucker for scandal, especially when there's sex involved.

Loving and un-loving: It's the stuff of vicarious, if cheap, thrills.

And in a celebrity-challenged country such as Canada — where hockey is politics — the gasp-snicker subject of the day must needs be The Battle of the Domis, with an uptown girl-pol thrown in for titillation.

Not exactly Jen and Brad and Angelina, but juicy enough for the likes of us.

In some dish'n'dirt quarters, the alleged romantic alliance of Tie Domi and Belinda Stronach has been tacitly framed as Beauty and the Beast: Except she's no flaming beauty and he's no Neanderthal beast.

The accused Other Woman, she is a compelling combination of blond ambition, moneyed privilege, political inconstancy and suspect judgment, with a very public trail of intimate relationships gone bad behind her.

And he's an immensely popular persona-about-town with business smarts at least commensurate to his hockey talents.

But the least-known protagonist in this alleged three-way tango of love and betrayal and anguish is The Wife, Leanne Domi. A Mrs. of 13 years standing who has, already once before, forgiven her husband for what she says was a previous infidelity, on the promise that he would never again hurt her like this.

"If it wasn't for my husband's affair with Belinda, we wouldn't be getting a divorce," Leanne told the Star in an interview last night.

"We were happily married. If not for Belinda, I think we still would be happily married. But he's no longer my husband and he will never be my husband again."

Leanne Domi has been criticized in recent days — and certainly from within the pro-Tie camp — for going so publicly postal in the provocative details contained within the court documents filed in support of her divorce application.

"The facts are the facts. Should I have just said that my marriage ended because my husband had committed adultery? People are insinuating that I named names to get back at Belinda or something. But this is what happened and this is why my marriage ended. There is zero doubt in my mind that Tie is having an affair with Belinda."

In the court documents, Leanne Domi said she asked her husband to leave their home on July 22 because she no longer believed his "lies'' about a strictly business relationship with Stronach, nor the excuses he allegedly made for time spent away from the family. "Tie Domi lied to and cheated on me and our children. ... He is a bully and will do whatever he has to do and say whatever he needs to say to get what he wants for himself. And right now, what he wants is to ensure that our family gets as little as possible so he can maintain his jet-set lifestyle, dine with movie stars (like Brad Pitt), and play the role of Belinda Stronach's exciting new romantic `good tough guy.'''

BILL ROBERTS/NEWMARKET ERA-BANNER
Newmarket-Aurora MP Belinda Stronach and hockey
tough guy Tie Domi at a minor hockey game in January
2006 during the federal election campaign

She maintains that, when confronted, Tie urged her not to hire a lawyer; that he would give her $1 million in cash and $1.5 for their palatial North Toronto house. "He told me that if I did hire a lawyer, I would `get nothing' ... He has told me he has many powerful and influential friends (including Belinda Stronach) who are `on his side and who don't want to hear my stupid sob stories about him and Belinda'. And he has told me that I had better `leave Belinda out of this.'''

It would be sexist to portray Stronach as some kind of man-eater who's now got her French-manicured talons into Domi, small-town boy made spectacularly good. By this point in the evolution of the sexes, surely women are just as entitled to their appetites and assignations as men. But the optics are lousy when a family goes bust because of it, and even more so for an elected politician who depends on the fealty of voters, one who — the irony is withering — is chair of the Liberal women's caucus.

Stronach appears singularly lacking in sisterly sympathies whilst also something of a balls-crusher, at least on the evidence of discarded, sad-eyed Peter MacKay — oh, we felt his pain! — dumped simultaneous with the Member from Newmarket-Aurora crossing the floor from Conservatives to Liberals, on the eve of an election no less. Her allegiances, like her love, are fickle.

So now she's reportedly gone from heartbreaker to home-wrecker.

Advice to Tie: She'll leave you bleeding.

Stronach does seem to have been dating (or alleged dating) down in recent years, descending from the Olympic heights of an almost mythically revered multiple gold medallist husband (Spouse #2) to an American president notorious for his infidelity to a then-in-opposition caucus colleague to a now-retired Toronto Maple Leaf. From Johann Koss to Bill Clinton to MacKay to Domi. Of course, in the eyes of some, Domi as purported paramour would be considered scoring up. (And if MacKay really does have a jones on for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his heart has mended to palpitate again.)

But the image of Domi as bag-boy, schlepping Stronach's purchases around Manhattan — as has been claimed — is wince-inducing. The man who once knocked the block off Bob Probert shouldn't be thus emasculated. And a woman who wants to be taken seriously as a player in the corridors of power, up on the Hill, should perhaps not reduce her "friend'' to such symbolically servile status.

What we've got here, at least according to the divorce papers, is a palpably long-suffering spouse driven to the breaking and break-up point by a serially unfaithful husband. In the documents, Leanne Domi alleges the cheating started when their daughter was only eight months old and that, during a subsequent 18-month separation, she discovered that Domi was having an affair with the B-level TV actress Tia Carrere (who once famously wore a Maple Leaf jersey as a dress at the NHL Awards).

This is all, it must be emphasized, but one side of the story — none of the allegations have been tested yet in court — and, as marriage failures go, one side is always a self-serving version of events, never the complete picture. Domi has not yet filed his counter-papers.

It can't be denied, however, that Mrs. Domi — an attractive and accomplished woman in her own right, formerly a merchandising manager, and a marathoner if memory serves (she actually looks a bit like Belinda) — has gone into extensive and arguably unnecessary detail about the alleged betrayals, when no-fault divorce laws in this country discourage just that very thing.

An enthralled public is taking sides, naturally.

Leanne Domi is seeking $15,246 a month in child support — the couple has three kids ages 12, 11 and 7; she wants custody — and $30,000 in spousal support, based upon Tie Domi's current income, as she presents it, of $1 million annually.

Tie Domi is not talking. Belinda Stronach couldn't be reached yesterday.

But sources close to the couple — by which I mean the alleged couple, Tie and Belinda — told the Star that the purported pair feel broadsided by the incendiary contents of Mrs. Domi's divorce application, with Tie particularly frantic about how such open hostility will affect their kids.

"Didn't she stop to think about what she was doing?'' said one source, about Leanne.

Further, whether genuinely involved romantically or not — Tie Domi has repeatedly stated he and Belinda are merely good friends — the couple has drawn even closer in the past few days because of Mrs. Domi's disclosures, sources say.

For those wondering, Domi is not cohabiting with Stronach. In her documents, Leanne Domi states friends have told her that Tie is living in a condominium on the Magna golf course "which I believe may well be owned or controlled or which was provided to/facilitated for him by Belinda Stronach, or which at the very least is extremely close to Belinda Stronach's residence.''

Convenient for a shoulder to cry on. Except tough guys don't cry, right?

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.

... HERE'S MORE ...

Tia and Tie?
Estranged wife of hockey player Tie Domi
claims he had tryst with actress Tia Carrere

Allison Jones
Canadian Press via Canada.com
Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Former hockey player Tie Domi had a tryst with Relic Hunter star Tia Carrere.

That's just one of the startling allegations made by his estranged wife in a bitter divorce battle.

Domi, an ex-Toronto Maple Leaf, is now linked to MP Belinda Stronach.

Carrere, whose real name is Althea Janairo, was in Toronto from 1999 to 2002 filming the syndicated series Relic Hunter. The 39-year-old actress has been married since the end of 2002 to Simon Wakelin, with whom she has one child.

Court documents filed by Leanne Domi alleged that her husband's greatest concern is that Stronach not be dragged into the dispute.

The couple reached a temporary settlement in their divorce proceedings.

The agreement, which could include custody of the couple’s three children and support, was reached at about 9:20 Tuesday, less than an hour before the case was heard in a Toronto courtroom.

Leanne Domi’s lawyer, Julie Hannaford, said the consent order was reached quickly because both Leanne and Tie Domi wanted to protect the interests of their children.

Her allegations, contained in a 20-page divorce application, have not been proven in court.

In the application, filed Sept. 18, the day before Tie Domi announced his retirement from the NHL, she alleges her husband's "intimate sexual relationship" with Stronach caused their marriage to deteriorate as well as his relationship with their three children.

She also alleges that the former Toronto Maple Leaf player told her if she did not hire a lawyer he would give her $1 million in cash and a $1.5-million house. If she contacted a lawyer, however, "I would get nothing."

The documents also allege that Tie Domi "is anxious and desperate to ensure that Belinda is not brought into the divorce."

Tie Domi has said he won't comment on his personal life and his agent said Monday the hockey star would have nothing to say while the matter was before the courts.

Stronach, who stuck to her regular routine in Ottawa on Monday, has also refused to comment.

Belinda Stronach and Tie Domi were all smiles
together at an event on Sept. 10, 2005. - LDP Images

She attended a gathering of the Liberal caucus executive, performed her regular Commons parliamentary duties, met with Liberal MPs to plot question-period strategy for the week, and went to a conference of business executives.

"She felt it would be very important that she do her job today and continue being the MP for Newmarket-Aurora," said the Stronach associate.

"She's got duties as an MP and that's what she'd rather be known for."

The personal life of the multimillionaire heiress to the auto-parts giant Magna International also made headlines in May 2005, when as a sitting Conservative member of Parliament, she crossed the floor, effectively jilting boyfriend and fellow Tory Peter MacKay, now foreign affairs minister.

Leanne Domi is seeking spousal support of $30,000 and child support of more than $15,000 per month, custody of the children with scheduled visits for Tie Domi, exclusive possession of the family home and the right to sell it and an order that his assets be frozen.

Though the application states it is not necessary to name names in cases of alleged adultery, the first line of Leanne Domi's allegations reads: "Tie Domi has committed adultery with Belinda Stronach" and there are numerous references to Stronach throughout the document.

The document alleges her husband's relationship with Stronach started in the summer of 2005, when he and Stronach attended a Formula One race in Montreal.

In January 2006 Tie Domi started working on Stronach's political campaign, Leanne Domi says in the divorce document, even though "Tie had little to no interest in politics, and in fact, had not the slightest idea about political ideology."

As her husband began spending more time with Stronach, Leanne Domi alleges he also began spending less time with their children, aged seven to 12, missing their hockey games in favour of, in one instance, attending a Toronto International Film Festival charity gala with Stronach, her son and actor Brad Pitt.

Leanne Domi says that on July 22, after receiving a call from a friend who said she saw Stronach and Tie Domi walking hand in hand down Madison Avenue in Manhattan, she tearfully implored her husband to explain, "Why he'd done what he'd done."

He responded, "I am so sorry Leanne...just leave Belinda out of this," the court document says. Leanne Domi says she asked her husband to leave their house. "He told me that if I kept quiet and didn't hire a lawyer he would give me $1 million in cash and buy me a house for $1.5 million," the divorce application reads.

It also says Tie Domi threatened his wife would "get nothing" if she hired a lawyer and said he has many powerful and influential friends (including Stronach) who are "on his side and who don't want to hear my stupid sob stories about him and Belinda."

The application also contains allegations that Tie Domi's "trysts" with Stronach were not his first indiscretions. His wife claims he also had a relationship with Carrere during a period the couple were separated and attending counselling.

- with files by canada.com

"I thought she only slept with people to further her political career."

Perhaps this indicates she intends on going for a head zoo-keeper job as her next career move ???

... and/or her billionaire dad is about to buy her a zoo. Stay tuned.

What's up with the Liberals? Political treachery, corruption in Quebec, children and dead people financing leadership campaigns and now this sordid affair with a married man that breaks up a marriage! Wow. The tabloid press couldn't make this up if it tried. I suspect the Liberals have to clean house and closets before they get back in the running -- the dirt is everywhere.

Belinda is reported to have gone the old feminist route. She has told the press, "You wouldn't be treating this way if I was a man". LOL!

"Belinda is reported to have gone the old feminist route. She has told the press, "You wouldn't be treating this way if I was a man". LOL!"

Yeah, it hardly made the news at all when Clinton cheated on his wife. /sarc

The smart money on Belinda's next boy friend:

Stéphane Dion 20-1
Don Cherry 8-1
Ben Mulroney 6-1
Sidney Crosby 5-2
Peter Mansbridge 2-1

I think Cherry is far too high class for her!

Hockey Ping!

It's that time of year - camps are opened, rosters being formed, and the game that you love coming soon to a rink near you! FRegards,

H-T

Freep mail/ping airborne or Hat-Trick if you want on or off the Hockey Ping List.

I have no idea who this guy is, but he is obviously insane. Why would someone who was with Tia Carrere settle for one of Bill "Fatty Unbuckle" Clinton's cast offs?

More stupid & unlikable than 'insane' and, given this description also fits Belinda, it's easy to argue they deserve each other.

Even the bulk of "the Leafs can do no wrong" crowd in perennially hockey mad Toronto couldn't stand Domi personally or professionally.
Especially over the final 2-3 years of his career, there were continual calls for the team to dump him as an obvious liability both on & off the ice.

What prevented as much - as well as making him all the more unpopular with team management & his fellow players - was Domi apparently having gained 'untouchable status' by somehow weaseling his way into the good graces of a member of the Leafs' ownership group.

On the week on his retirement, just prior to the Belinda story breaking, phone-in polls on Toronto sports shows were running 3 & 4 to 1 against the Leafs in any way publicly honoring him upon his departure - ouch!

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