Multi-Millionaire Heiress Michele Rollins: Deadbeat Grandma?
We all remember Michele Rollins, right? She was the state GOP establishment’s choice to take replace Mike Castle in Congress in 2010. But like Mike Castle himself, she lost to a teabagger candidate named Glen Urquhart. As you may recall, Michele Rollins is the widow of John W. Rollins Sr., who made his money in pest control, truck leasing, outdoor advertising, and other businesses here in Delaware and elsewhere. When John died twenty years ago, she inherited a nice fortune, as did Ted. Michele has gone on to run Rollins Jamaica Ltd, the holding company for the Rose Hall vacation resort. In 2010, Rollins reported her family fortune to be between $92 million and $350 million dollars. While most of that money is held in trust for the children of John Rollins, Michele Rollin’s personal 2009 income still ranged from $1.6 million to $13.3 million. So, she is, by all accountants, a wealthy woman who can afford to take care of herself and her family.
Last week, we received a tip from an Alabama legal and political blog called the Legal Schnauzer. It seems they have been following the divorce of Ted Rollins from his wife. Ted Rollins is the son of the late John Rollins and step son of Michele. I’ll let them take it from here:
Ted Rollins [is] the CEO of Campus Crest Communities and the focus of our reporting about a troubling divorce case he launched in Alabama.
[M]ichele Rollins is Ted Rollins’ stepmother. And that means Michele Rollins is step-grandmother to Ted Rollins’ two teen-aged daughters, who live in Birmingham with their mother, Sherry Carroll Rollins. And as we reported recently, Sherry Carroll Rollins and her daughters are on food stamps, largely because of an extraordinary divorce judgment Ted Rollins received in Shelby County, Alabama[.] […]
With the apparent help of his lawyer friends at the powerful Birmingham firm of Bradley Arant, Ted Rollins managed to get a divorce judgment that requires him to pay the whopping sum of $815 a month in child support (plus $500 a month in alimony). This for a man whose company completed a $380-million IPO last year on Wall Street, a guy who has the use of multiple private jets.
If you do the math, and check federal guidelines, you see that the $1,315 a month in support for three people qualifies for food stamps. That Ted Rollins, what a guy!
So a rich grandmother and her rich step son are allowing these girls and their mother to live on food stamps. In fact, Ted Rollins manipulated the legal system and misrepresented his considerable assets so as to lower his child support and alimony payments as much as possible. Wait a minute, you are saying. Perhaps Michele is unaware of what her step son has done, and perhaps she would be more than willing to help her grandchildren out if she were aware of the situation, because, you know, rich Republicans are generally a generous people. /snark. Well…
In an e-mail dated September 20, 2011, I presented a series of questions about the Rollins v. Rollins divorce case, and its aftermath, to Ted and Michele Rollins. One of the questions involved the fact that members of their family tree in Alabama are on food stamps. I received no answers to my questions.
I suppose it is comforting to know that the rich treat their own family as horribly as they treat the rest of the 99%.
One of the ways the GOPers bolster their arguments for cutting back the social safety net it to note that people should rely on their families, their churches and their communities to help them before relying on the government. Sad that the rationale for a social safety net comes right from the GOP playbook — who don’t seem to much care for their own families, either.
Republicans know that if children aren’t rich right out of the womb, it is there own damn fault.
I heard Michele told her stepson to send his kids ALPO – it has the same nutrients and with a little ketchup, you wouldn’t know it’s dog food. And according to the late Ronald Reagan, ketchup is a vegetable.
I am NOT arguing on behalf of the Rollinses (sp?) but is the ex wife not working? I wonder why not (housewife all her life? no jobs?).The kids are old enough that she could.
What did Michele do after she married John? Housewife?
I think the correct term is Rollinsini, V. If the kids want to eat, they should go be slaves….. i mean servants… i mean “help” at Rose Hall.
I wouldn’t try to equate Ted Rollins with the Republicans. I haven’t known Ted for Quite some time, but growing up he was more into music than politics. He used to tour with Johny Cash I think he was a pallbearer at his funeral.
Further proof that the duPonts had it right. Keep it all in the family. Marry your second cousins. Granted, the occasional John duPont will surface, but it’s like the Corvair or the Pinto–economic benefits outweigh the human toll. Simple cost-benefits analysis.
As to why Mrs. (Ted) Rollins isn’t working, if indeed she’s not working, does not the term ‘trophy wife’ mean anything to you? Allow me to quote from my favorite philosopher, Tom Waits:
“His wife was a spent piece of used jet trash
Made good bloody-marys, kept her mouth
shut most of the time, had a little Chihuahua
named Carlos that had some kind of skin
disease and was totally blind.”
That’s probably apropos of nothing, but I’ve wanted to find a way to use that lyric for, like, forever.
Well, if you had a job that paid $100,000 a year and you get released, you get what? $300 a week at unemployment?
Food stamps? Really, no details? Could you live with her? Does the mom work? Is she productive? Is $1400+ enough to live on? (I Know it really isn’t, but people do). Is she, and the children used to a certain level of life style? I have no sympathy for the mom, did he cheat, did she cheat, did the marriage simply fall apart?
She must have been awarded custody, and therefore is entitled to millions to ensure that THEIR children will reap her legasy.
I can’t blame Rollins here (without further evidence) either.
I’m not sure why it would be Michele’s responsibility to take care of Ted’s kids when Ted Rollins HAS A MOTHER, who’s the actual grandmother of the children, she’s not exactly poor, Ted inherited his own money from his father, and John Rollins left the vast majority of his monty to his children, not to Michele.
But the bottom line is that Michele didn’t raise Ted. Michele had 4 or 5 of her own to raise. Maybe you should be asking Ted’s mother why she’s not doing anything for her grandkids.
More from the Alabama blog:
“Court records indicate that Sherry Rollins’ divorce case, at first, was moving along in a normal fashion. A South Carolina judge had issued a temporary order that called for Ted Rollins to pay $3,355 a month in child support for the couple’s two daughters, $5,000 a month in alimony, and continue paying the mortgage, taxes, and insurance on the marital home.
Records indicate that the mortgage was not paid, and Sherry Rollins and her children were forced from their home. Mrs. Rollins fled to Alabama, where her two sons from a previous marriage were living.
What happened next? Ted Rollins failed to pay the court-ordered alimony and child support, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. For you or me, that would mean we were in deep doo-doo.
What did it mean for Ted Rollins? Not much. He filed a lawsuit for divorce against his wife in Alabama–and Shelby County Judge Al Crowson actually allowed it. For anyone who’s had a few days of Law School 101, that last sentence should shock the conscience. That’s because such a transfer of a case across jurisdictional boundaries simply cannot be done.”
There’s more at legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/11/heres-how-wealthy-republicans-receive.html. Obviously, this is not the entire story, but it seems Ted Rollins went shopping for a jurisdiction where he would receive favorable treatment and found a willing partner.
Michelle could send them some Wilmington Trust stock. It was worth $40/share when she joined the board:
http://www.wilmingtontrust.com/repositories/wtc_sitecontent/PopUp_Content/2007/PR-2007-0725_rollins.html
Billionaire Warren Buffet, liberal hero and adviser to Obama, disowned his granddaughter for participating in a documentary called “The One Percent”. Chew on that one for a while.
Disowning and disinheriting a grandchild is a lot different from screwing around with the legal system to screwover your ex-spouse.
disowned his granddaughter for participating in a documentary called “The One Percent”.
When you show that this kid is living on food stamps or welfare, you might finally get yourself a point. Except she’s not on food stamps or welfare so you would be at #falseequivilencyFAIL. But you are accustomed to that, I’m thinking.
So if Michelle Rollins is a deadbeat grandmother, what is multi- billionaire Warren Buffet? I’ll answer that for you. He is a money crazed old curmudgeon who if he gave away 99% of his money wouldn’t even notice it so he should just shut the fuck up. That’s who he is.
And you are still at #falseequivilencyFAIL.
Buffett would be a deadbeat granddad if his granddaughter was living off of the state. She isn’t.
So this is you, still flailing for a point.
Apparently she can’t afford health insurance.
And this thread relates to Warren Buffett … how, exactly? Michele Rollins is, part-time at least, a Delawarean. Warren Buffett is just a rich guy you feel like insulting because he makes your side look like the greedy assholes they are.
Do conservatives realize that “he did it first (or worse)” is not a defense?
BTW, unlike conservatives, who will adopt heroes they know nothing about just because they’re desperate for affirmation, liberals do not consider Warren Buffett a “liberal hero” just because he agrees with them about taxes. They cite him because they’re saying “even a guy like this, a natural Republican, can see the common sense in taxing the rich more.”
Wrong approach, Cass. You are accepting his false equivalency by taking the position that, if Warren Buffett were a deadbeat grandpa, that would somehow be germane to a discussion of Michele Rollins. It doesn’t matter how many rich grandparents don’t take care of their grandkids. The person under discussion is Michele Rollins, and only Michele Rollins.
Oh, and her scumbag son.
John Rollins, FYI, died in 2000. It only seems like 20 years ago.