Jill Kelley, the Florida woman who first exposed the sex scandal that led Gen. David Petraeus to resign, had major legal and financial trouble long before she burst into the spotlight, according to recent reports.
Kelley, 37, and her husband Scott Kelley, a cancer surgeon in Tampa, Fla., have been sued at least nine times, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Despite their lavish lifestyle, they face foreclosure and massive amounts of debt, according to court documents.
Jill Kelley, who blew open the Petraeus scandal when she contacted a friend who worked for the FBI to report harassing emails from the CIA director's mistress, Paula Broadwell, lives in a $1.5 million mansion on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Regions Bank is trying to foreclose on the historic waterfront home where the socialite entertained Petraeus and other VIPs, including military leaders stationed at MacDill Air Force Base.
The couple also face foreclosure on a three-story office building they own in downtown Tampa. Court records show that the Kelleys owe their bank nearly $2.2 million on the property, according to the the Tampa Bay Times. A judge last year ordered the building be put up for sale.
In a sign of the trouble they are facing, the Kelleys have hired attorney Abbe Lowell, who represented former presidential candidate John Edwards, and crisis manager Judy Smith, who worked for Monica Lewinsky.
Financial problems apparently run in the family. WBAL-TV News in Baltimore cited Maryland court records showing that Kelley's twin sister Natalie Khawam -- who is seen in a much-circulated photo with Kelley, Petraeus and his wife Holly -- is currently being sued for $100,000 in unpaid lawyer fees in a divorce case in Montgomery County, Md. Both Petraeus and Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who had exchanged thousands of pages of emails with Kelley, testified on behalf of Khawam in the case.
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