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05/11/2006Witnesses recount Unger's financial woes
Peter Stern of Maple City, Forence Unger's brother, testifies Wednesday in the Mark Unger trial in Beulah. BEULAH — Mark Unger pocketed $10,000 a month in disability payments after he left rehab for drug and gambling addiction in early 2003. But his family's finances remained in such disarray that his wife, Florence Unger, had to get a job as a mortgage broker to support her family. "She much rather would have been with her kids," said Steven Frank, a friend of the couple who testified in the fourth day of testimony in Mark Unger's trial on a charge of first-degree murder. "She hated to do that, but she knew she needed to do it for financial reasons," Florence Unger was found dead in Lower Herring Lake in October 2003 as the couple spent a weekend at Watervale Resort with their children. Prosecutors say Mark Unger killed his wife during a nasty divorce by pushing her from a boathouse deck and dragging her into the lake. Defense lawyers contend Florence Unger's death was an accident. Much of Wednesday's testimony focused on what friends noticed about the couple in the year leading up to Florence Unger's death. When Mark Unger left rehab, he collected around $10,000 a month tax-free from disability policies he'd bought years earlier, his attorney, Robert Harrison, said during questioning of a witness. But that didn't end the couple's financial troubles, said Joan Frank, Steven Frank's wife and a friend of the Ungers. Frank said she met Florence Unger as she sorted through a pile of bills and began to realize the extent of her family's trouble. Frank said she understood much of the debt was tied to gambling. "She was totally freaking out about it," Frank said. Peter Stern, Florence Unger's brother and a Glen Arbor resident, said he knew troubles existed with his sister's marriage and the family's finances. "They were just not operating as a team "¦ things did not seem right to me when I was there," Stern testified. "I basically asked her, 'If you sell the house and got a divorce, would you still be in debt?' And she said, 'Yes.'" Another of Florence Unger's friends, Kate Ostrove of Birmingham, described a gloomy marriage and said Florence Unger wanted to leave Mark Unger because of his addictions and financial failure. "It was a very unhappy marriage; a very loveless marriage," Ostrove said. "She went back to work because they were having financial problems and she was contemplating a divorce and she knew she had to support herself and her family." Prosecutors also sought to develop a portrait of Mark Unger as a jealous husband who worried his wife was having an affair. Over objections from Harrison, 19th Circuit Court Judge James Batzer allowed testimony from Joan Frank that indicated Mark Unger was jealous of his wife. Joan Frank testified that Florence Unger took several calls during a dinner from someone she assumed was Mark Unger and that Florence Unger repeatedly had to assure him that she was out with the Franks. In testimony last week, another family friend described an affair he had with Florence Unger in the year leading up to her death. Testimony is scheduled to resume today. See Related Stories:
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