BC ‘sugar daddy’ to pay $4,000 a month to ex-wife 54 years his junior

A 77-year-old BC man who met his 23-year-old wife through a website that introduces “sugar babies” with “sugar daddies” will have to fork out $4,000 a month and hand over the dog to his ex-wife.

The 23-year-old, who has never worked, had wanted $12,000 in spousal support so she can maintain the lifestyle she enjoyed during the relationship.

In a Sept. 24 BC Supreme Court decision, Justice Warren Milman said the most unusual thing in the case was the 54-year age gap between Jada Jane Bekar and Alexander Mordo, whose “tumultuous” and brief relationship had lasted three and a half years.

The couple met on the Seeking Arrangements website, which touts itself as “space for love and luxury to meet.” They began living together in March 2021, when she would have been 19 or 20 and he was in his early 70s, and got married two years later. Eighteen months later, they separated.

“While the parties were together, she says, Mr. Mordo encouraged her to spend $10,000 per month on her own rental accommodation, at his expense. He took her travelling and regularly gave her expensive gifts, such as jewelry, watches and handbags,” the Justice said. “They frequently dined together at expensive restaurants.”

Now the relationship is over the couple are in court fighting over who gets what in the divorce.

Bekar argued Mordo had an annual income of $2.45 million and her spousal support payments should be $12,000 a month plus $100,000 of arrears. She also wanted Mordo to pay $17,000 for her tuition at a foreign fashion school in Turkey and $3,000 for orthodontic treatment.

She argued her monthly expenses were $12,500, which covered $3,000 rent, along with $500 for toiletries and cosmetics, and $850 of salon visits for facials, massages and eyelashes.

Mordo argued he’d only been able to maintain an opulent lifestyle by selling off his assets, and his income was $64,000 a year. Based on $64,000 a year income spousal support payments would be between $327 and $174 a month.

The decision said that in the last few years he’d spent about $1.65 million, which he’d generated by selling various properties.

Bekar, on the other hand, has no income because she has yet to enter the workforce, the Justice said.

“Before the relationship, she was studying anthropology at the University of British Columbia. She says that Mr. Mordo discouraged her from working. Moreover, she says, he persuaded her to change her career path and enrol at an international fashion school based in Istanbul, Turkey, but has now refused to continue funding her tuition there,” the decision read.

Mordo argued that spousal support is paid from income, not from selling assets.

Justice Milman ruled this was “one of those rare cases” where spousal support should be assessed on both income and his historical spending pattern.

The decision said Mordo owns a $4.7-million West Vancouver home and a property in Aruba valued at $1.3-million along with a couple of companies.

“(The) evidence suffices to demonstrate that Mr. Mordo has the means to pay interim spousal support at a level sufficient to alleviate, for a transitional period, the steep and sudden drop in Ms. Bekar’s standard of living since the separation,” the Justice said.

The Justice said the amount had to focus on Bekar making the transition from the opulent lifestyle she enjoyed during the relationship to her new reality.

“That new reality will not be as jarring for her as it would have been had she grown accustomed to that opulent lifestyle over many years,” the Justice said. “In this case, Ms. Bekar was a student yet to embark on her career when she met Mr. Mordo in late 2020. She has returned to that situation again, after a hiatus of less than four years.”

Mordo argued she was capable of working and could make money as an escort as she had done previously. He also said she could sell the many expensive gifts he gave her during their relationship or get money from her wealthy family.

Outside of the money, the couple also both made multiple accusations about the other and a protection order which Bekar had obtained.

Mordo said that under the guise of the order, Bekar returned to the family home with a police escort and retrieved pieces of jewelry and handbags worth $200,000.

“Mordo alleges that Ms. Bekar abused the protection order by falsely complaining to the police that he was in breach of its terms so that she could use the opportunity, while he was in police custody as a result of that complaint, to ‘abduct’ Frankie (the dog),” the Justice said.

Bekar claimed she didn’t know he would be held in custody and only went to get the dog when she realized it would be left alone.

Ultimately, the Justice decided Bekar could keep the dog, and ordered Mordo to pay her $4,000 a month, plus $40,000 in retroactive payments.