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A marriage that began in the summer of 1984 in Imperial, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, now stands before a court in Independence, Missouri. Mara Eleanor Swart has petitioned the Circuit Court of Jackson County for dissolution from William Gregory Swart, initiating Case No. 2616-FC00894. The filing was made February 4, 2026, and by its terms the separation is effective as of that date.
Both parties have resided in Jackson County, Missouri, for more than ninety days preceding the petition, and both are over the age of eighteen. The petition states that irreconcilable differences have led to an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and that there is no reasonable likelihood it can be preserved. There are no unemancipated children born of the marriage, and the petitioner is not pregnant.
The court is told that neither party seeks maintenance, each being described as able-bodied and capable of supporting themselves. The petitioner alleges that the respondent engaged in a pattern of financial misconduct, specifically the wasting of marital funds, and asks that this conduct be considered in the division of marital property and allocation of debts. The parties are said to have accumulated both marital property and obligations during the marriage, as well as separate non-marital property to be set apart to each.
In addition, the petitioner requests that the respondent be ordered to pay his own attorney’s fees and costs and those of the petitioner, asserting she lacks the financial means to do so without undue hardship and that the matter arises from the respondent’s misconduct. In early February, as households and finances are recalibrated at the start of a new year, such filings underscore the administrative clarity the law seeks to impose: assets counted, allegations recorded, and a long-standing union placed within the measured timetable of judicial resolution.
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