Kelly Todd: Finding Hidden Money in a Divorce

In most marriages one person ends up holding the financial knowledge and the other one does not. Kelly Todd says that arrangement, on its own, is where financial betrayal becomes possible: control comes first, then the rationalization that the money was really theirs all along, then the deception. She includes her own marriage in that description.

Kelly Todd is a forensic accountant who has spent her career investigating suspected fraud for corporations and for individuals, and who works through the firm Forensic Strategic Solutions. Most of that work has been reactive: someone already suspects money is gone, and she is brought in to trace it. She talks in this episode about deliberately shifting some of her focus toward awareness and prevention, on the evidence that people who know fraud can happen to them are the people who notice it earlier.

For anyone still in the relationship, Kelly's advice is to be in the know rather than cynical. Know what the household costs to run, what your spouse earns, and where the accounts are. Ask from curiosity rather than accusation. Then she gets specific about signals: an income that should leave money over but never does, transfers in round dollar amounts, transfers into accounts you do not recognize, and the newer routes through payment apps and cryptocurrency that add a step between the account and the destination.

Her most practical suggestion is a financial journal, a written chronology of what has happened with money in the marriage. It removes emotion from a story that is genuinely emotional, it costs less than narrating it to a professional billing by the hour, and, as one of her cases showed, it can surface a question nobody had thought to ask even when the sequence itself is wrong. She and Lisa close on discovery: downloading records while access lasts, why a suspicion about an offshore account needs a trace to hang on, how something missing from a bank statement can prove another account exists, and the settlement language that lets support be reopened if income turns out to have been understated.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a household where one spouse holds all the financial knowledge is the setup fraud needs
• Red flags inside a marriage: solid income and never any cash left over
• Round-dollar transfers, and why ordinary life almost never produces them
• Payment apps and crypto: how an intermediary step hides where money ended up
• The financial journal: a written chronology that works even when the dates are off
• Download what you can while you still have account access
• Why a missing mortgage payment can prove an account you were never told about
• Settlement language that lets support be revisited if income was understated

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 The fraudster mindset, and why divorce is financial warfare
3:00 What a forensic accountant does, and why she shifted toward prevention
5:00 Awareness as prevention, and the trust that gets exploited
9:00 Red flags: no cash despite the income, round dollars, apps and crypto
13:00 The financial journal, and the four million dollar loan it surfaced
16:00 Discovery: finding the nugget that proves another account exists
21:00 Protective language in the agreement, and Lisa's modification clause
24:00 Where to start when something does not add up

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Kelly Todd at Forensic Strategic Solutions: https://forensicstrategic.com/

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.