Alexander Montagu, 13th Duke of Manchester

The 13th Duke is the son of Angus Montagu, 12th Duke of Manchester and Australian native Mary (née McClure), a newspaper columnist.

In 1984, Montagu married Marion Stoner, an Australian model who was 20 years older. The relationship lasted two months; Stoner left after accusing Alexander of firing a speargun at her.[1][2] In 1985, Montagu was sentenced to three years' in prison after being convicted of 22 charges of fraud. In 1991, he was arrested again in Brisbane after he sold a car he had rented.[3]

After immigrating to the United States in 1986, he married Wendy Buford in 1993 and had a son, also named Alexander.[4][5] He did not obtain a divorce from his first wife until 1996, three years after his second marriage. They had a second child, a daughter, in 1999.[6][7]

Montagu and Buford separated after 15 years and divorced in 2007. He then remarried an American real estate agent named Laura Smith.[3] In 2009, the duke reportedly then revealed that his marriage to Buford 1993 marriage was invalid as he had still been married to his first wife in Australia. He stopped making child support payments and the family trust cut off funds to the children.[3][4] Buford successfully sued on behalf of their two children. In 2011, High Court Justice Christopher Floyd ruled that the two children, even though they were born when their parents were not lawfully married, were entitled to trust funds, as “[Buford] reasonably believed the marriage was valid”.[5] Under the Legitimacy Act 1959, the children of void marriages should be legally considered legitimate if “at the time of the act of intercourse resulting in the birth” or at time of the wedding if either party "reasonably believed" that the marriage was indeed valid.[5]

In 2013, the duke was charged with fraud in Las Vegas for reportedly knowingly passing a $3,575 check in 2011 without "funds, property or credit" to back up the check. He pleaded no contest to the charge and received a 90-day suspended sentence and six months to repay the debt.[3] However, after failing to repay the debt and failing to appear in court, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest in June 2014.[2]

• Duke of Manchester