After ditching her family, Occupy mom snags $85K in divorce
She’s protesting banks — but still getting a bailout.
The Florida housewife who abandoned her family to join Occupy Wall Street is divorcing, giving up custody of her four kids and taking a big payout from her husband.
Professional protester Stacey Hessler is legally splitting from her hubby, Curtiss, but not before waltzing off with a portfolio that includes cash and his 401(k) retirement fund, filled with stocks and other instruments of American capitalism.
The divorce settlement, filed Oct. 16, awards Occu-Mom the $79,585 fund and a $5,800 bank account. Her total take: $85,385.
The filing lists Curtiss’ occupation as banker and says he earns $65,000 a year. Her job is listed in court papers as “protester” and her employer as “Occupy Wall Street.” Annual salary: $0.
Divorce papers cite “irreconcilable differences” for the split, saying the 19-year marriage “is irretrievably broken.”
One OWS protester who knows her says that Stacey’s devotion to the movement caused the divorce but that she was unfazed by the breakup.
“She didn’t seem sad about any of it,” the source said. “It was just so matter-of-fact.”
As recently as last month, Stacey, 39, was sleeping in front of a Wells Fargo bank branch in the Financial District near Zuccotti Park, but it appears she scrambled back home to suburban DeLand to finalize the divorce.
Wearing her professional-protester uniform — a bandana and patchwork clothes — she refused to say what her plans were or when she’d be leaving the house.
But she did respond when a Post reporter asked about a YouTube video showing her making out with another protester during an Occupy “Kiss In” on Valentine’s Day.
“I actually made out with four guys,” she said, laughing wildly.
Curtiss, 43, initiated the divorce in Volusia County, Fla., where the couple raised their family about 25 miles west of Daytona Beach.
The husband, a former Bank of America financial adviser, along with son Peyton, 18, and daughters Kennedy, 16, Sullivan, 14, and Veda, 8, reside in the three-bedroom, bungalow-style home built in 1952 on the ironically named East Rich Avenue.
It’s the picture of Americana, complete with a white picket fence and sprawling back yard.
Under the settlement, Curtiss keeps the $65,000 house and assumes the $13,000 mortgage.
He also gets custody of the children.
“The children will be under primary care of their father,” state the settlement papers the couple jointly submitted.
He has them every weekday, weekend, holiday and school break. She can see them any time, but only when “they want to see her” and only in a “safe environment,” the papers say.
That probably means the kids won’t be visiting her at the downtown Chase bank vestibule or Brooklyn hostel where she’s known to crash — or sharing any handout meals served in the public atrium at 60 Wall St.
Hessler — who has described herself as “midwives assistant, roller-derby queen, rock-star musician, activist, dreadlock princess, African-bee keeper and organic vegan freak” — showed up at Zuccotti Park a year ago and threw herself into the Occupy movement.
The Long Island native twisted her hair into long, scraggly dreadlocks and dressed in raggedy outfits that included a “Make Love, Not War” T-shirt. She slept under a tarp, cozying up to Rami Shamir, a 30-year-old waiter at a Brooklyn bistro.
Asked why she left her family, Stacey once proclaimed: “Military people leave their families all the time, so why should I feel bad? I’m fighting for a better world.”
In November, she was arrested near the park and charged with disorderly conduct. Cops said she blocked traffic and refused orders to move.
Curtiss, asked about the divorce, said, “No comment.”
“It hasn’t been easy on the guy,” said a friend of his.
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