Disclaimer: All facts gleaned from the filings stated hereafter are only as truthful as the petitioner. The tone of this article expresses a style of writing historically employed by America’s greatest writers and, as such, is for opinion purposes only. No intentional harm is due. Do not read if the topic of divorce (even your own) causes you emotional distress. Continue at your own risk.
Some marriages crumble in silence. Others fracture in plain view—on street corners, in courtrooms, across years of unpaid rent and jobs that never came. On May 13, 2025, Violeta Itsel Sotelo Reyes took a formal step away from what had long stopped being a partnership, filing for divorce in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis from Jose Jesus Carlin Ochoa, her husband of nearly thirteen years.
The couple was married in Lincolnton, North Carolina, in September 2012. By June 1, 2023, they had stopped living as husband and wife. Since that separation, their three children—born between 2014 and 2019—have lived solely with Violeta, who resides on Newport Avenue in South St. Louis. Jose, according to the petition, is now homeless and unemployed.
Violeta, represented by attorney Elizabeth J. Ituarte of Ituarte & Ituarte, P.C., is asking the court to dissolve a marriage she asserts is irretrievably broken. She also asks that the court adopt her proposed parenting plan, divide marital and separate property equitably, and let each party be responsible for their own legal fees and financial upkeep.
There are no allegations of military status, no claims of pregnancy, no hidden third parties staking a claim to the children. Just two people—one with a stable address, one without—drifting on opposite ends of a broken bond. And a court, once again, is asked to make sense of what life left behind.
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