Wife of hedge-fund mogul barred from testifying in record-breaking NJ divorce case after hacking his email: judge

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Billionaire John Overdeck testified in his record-breaking New Jersey divorce case Tuesday — but his estranged wife was barred from taking the stand because of alleged dirty tactics such as hacking his computer.

State Family Court Judge Bruce Buechler determined 56-year-old mom-of-three Laura Overdeck “engaged in multiple discovery abuses” — citing several examples of domestic espionage and evidence destruction — in what’s been billed the state’s most expensive contested split.

Her underhanded tactics included illicitly accessing her 56-year-old financier husband’s private computer to take photos of emails he exchanged with his lawyers, breaking into his post office box and deleting evidence from her phone, the judge said, according to a transcript of a prior hearing at the Newark, NJ, courthouse.

The ruling means the wife will be unable to testify or call expert witnesses in the sensational case.

And that could throw a wrench into her attempts to claim 35% of her hubby’s stake in his $80 billion hedge fund Two Sigma — or a mind-boggling $6.2 billion.

John Overdeck has offered his wife $633 million, her lawyers have said.

The husband looked like he didn’t have a care in the world outside court Tuesday — dressed in a blue suit and open-necked white shirt with no tie as he grinned for The Post and carried his phone with a playful game on it.

His wife — dressed in dark-blue jeans, a light-blue blazer, white top and sandals — appeared much more subdued and solemn as she made her way into the building.

The judge found in April that Laura Overdeck had snapped pics on her cell of her spouse’s emails discussing legal strategy — and then failed to produce the phone, according to the transcript.

Despite court orders, she didn’t turn over the phone “until at least 13 months later” — and the images had been deleted, with her claiming the device was running out of memory, according to Buechler.

“Whether Ms. Overdeck did it maliciously or accidentally is not relevant,” Buechler said. ”There’s a cumulative effect here.”

The ruling also found that the wife convinced the post office to provide her with an extra key to her estranged husband’s private P.O. box “so she could access the mail in that box” — but she refused to say what she took or to return it.

Buechler opted to dismiss the wife’s divorce complaint — calling it the “ultimate sanction” — severely limiting her options in the Newark courtroom.

Her husband meanwhile testified Tuesday that his wife was well aware the company was his before marriage.

“I remember that she, even before we were married, acknowledged that I owned a company, and that she wasn’t the type of person who would claim that that would be hers,” John Overdeck said from the stand.

“I remember when we bought our first house in June of 2004 and soon thereafter, when I decided to title it in joint name, that that was essentially taking something that had been mine and making it ours, and that [it] came up in that context,” he said.

“It came up when we were establishing trusts for our children, which first happened in about 2007. It came up when we later — well, regularly thereafter. After 2007, we hired an accountant, and the accountant prepared separate balance sheets for the company, and it had separate columns for, you know, ‘John’s assets’ and whatever.”

Since the judge’s ruling taking Laura Overdeck to task, grilling the husband on cross-examination will be the main way for her to make her case, the judge’s ruling noted.

The wife will be legally barred from presenting a single shred of affirmative evidence, testifying in support of her claim or calling her own high-priced valuation experts to the stand.

But Buechler made clear that “the assets need to be equitably distributed,” meaning that the Overdeck fortune must still be split up.

At issue is whether Overdeck can claim her husband’s stake in Two Sigma as a marital asset.

John Overdeck’s lawyers argue the Manhattan-based investment firm was founded two years before the couple’s 2002 nuptials.