Tareq Salahi files for divorce

View larger image Tareq and Michaele Salahi stand outside of Mikado Sushi and Japanese Steakhouse in Front Royal in 2010. Andrew Thayer/Daily file Complaint for Divorce PDF: Court Document Recommend This Print This Get E-mail News Alerts Buy Photos/Page Reprints

Complaint: Wife had affair with Journey guitarist for months

By Joe Beck -- jbeck@nvdaily.com

FRONT ROYAL -- The marriage of Tareq and Michaele Salahi officially hit the rocks Friday when he filed for divorce in Warren County Circuit Court.

The complaint supports reports earlier this week that Michaele Salahi has run off with Neal Schon, the lead guitarist for the rock band Journey.

The complaint leaves no doubt that domestic strife lay behind a missing persons phone call Tareq Salahi made to the Warren County Sheriff's Office late Tuesday. A sheriff's deputy made contact with Michaele Salahi within a few minutes, and she assured him she was in no danger and had no plans to return home at 440 Scenic Overlook Drive.
The Salahis were married Nov. 1, 2003 in Washington, according to the complaint.

The complaint accuses Schon of sending an e-mail to Tareq Salahi that included an attachment with a photo of a penis.

The complaint also accuses Michaele Salahi of conducting an affair with Schon "for a period of months" before she disappeared on Tuesday to join Schon on a concert tour with his band.

Tareq Salahi said in the complaint that he called the Sheriff's Office on Tuesday to report his wife missing or kidnapped.

"It was later learned through the FBI that she had been found with Schon in Memphis (Tenn.) and the defendant stated she was not returning home and had thus abandoned the marriage and the marital home," the complaint states.

In the complaint, Tareq Salahi describes how "over the objections of me, she continually exposes our friends and acquaintances to her adulterous relationship, and she had flaunted the same throughout the community, the nation and indeed the world, and thus caused ... me to suffer great harm, humiliation and embarrassment."

Journey paid for Michaele Salahi's "travel, accommodations and other expenses" during her time away from home, according to the complaint.

Tareq Salahi describes himself in the complaint as "greatly hurt and disturbed" by his wife's decision to leave him Tuesday.

"There is no hope of reconciliation," the complaint states.

The complaint also states the couple has a pre-nuptial agreement and asks that Tareq Salahi be granted "exclusive use and possession" of their home during divorce proceedings.

Salahi's complaint states that his wife's decision to leave home "to continue her adulterous relationship with her paramour constitutes desertion, both physical and financial."

The Salahis' attorney, David Silek, met with Tareq Salahi at the couple's home Wednesday as FBI agents and Sheriff's Office officials tried to pin down details of the unfolding story.

Silek at the time described Tareq Salahi as "understandably upset," but declined to elaborate about the cause of his client's distress.

An auction of equipment and wine from the Salahis' Hume winery is scheduled for Sunday. The auction is a court-ordered effort to liquidate assets in connection with a bankruptcy filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Salahis have received national attention over the years for their actions, most notably obtaining entrance into a White House state dinner without an invitation.