Which he was.
O Sr. wives in another country were immaterial. They were wed and divorced in America. The divorce proceeding is legal evidence of a legal marriage.
Had Sr's other wives had any standing in law in our country, the marriage would have been annulled.
Really? So married Brits, Canadians and Aussies can dissolve their marriages, and make them just go away, by setting foot here in the US? They are free to enter into legally valid marriages here, notwithstanding the fact that they are already married? I must have been fishing the day they taught that at law school.
The divorce proceeding is legal evidence of a legal marriage. Certainly. Just like a forged promissory note is legal evidence of a legal debt... before it is established that the promissory note was in fact forged.
Had Sr's other wives had any standing in law in our country, the marriage would have been annulled Can you post a PDF of the return of service of citation, showing that the other wives were made a part of the divorce? No? If you had been BO Sr's lawyer, would you have advised him to inform the Court that the marriage should be annulled, as he had committed bigamy by attempting to marry an American woman?
Sometimes a party stipulates to the existence of a marriage for fear of criminal prosecution if he does not. In Texas we have common law marriage. Back when I did family law, I had more than one guy come in who was being sued for divorce, who told me he wasn't married, he just had a girl friend. Does she have any kids that aren't yours? I would ask. Yes. Did you ever file your income tax return as a married couple, so that you could claim her kids were part of your household, and get earned income credit money back from the IRS? Yes.
I would then have a talk with my client about how holding yourself out as a married couple, such as by filing a joint tax return, was an element of a common law marriage, and that the joint tax return was evidence of a common law marriage. And about how if I was able to prove, at some expense, that there was no common law marriage, I would also be be proving that my client had committed Federal income tax fraud, by swearing that he was married when he filed his tax return. Is that how he wanted to proceed, or, upon reflection, did my client think that maybe had had a common law marriage after all, and was OK with getting a divorce?
I never had one ask me to contest the issue of marriage in court.