Joseph Czuba's Marriage Coming To An End, Wife Seeks Divorce

JOLIET, IL — Two days before celebrating his 72nd birthday, Plainfield first-degree murder defendant Joseph Czuba learned that his wife Mary filed for a divorce against him, a petition for dissolution of marriage at the Will County Courthouse revealed.

Mary Czuba has retained the downtown Joliet law firm of DeVriendt & Associates to bring the petition forward against Czuba, who remains in the Will County Jail facing first-degree murder charges and hate crime charges in connection with October's deadly stabbing of little Wadee Alfayoumi and the stabbing of Wadee's mother, Hanan Shaheen.

According to Mary Czuba's petition, she and Joseph Czuba were married on April 30, 1994, in California and their marriage was registered in L.A. County. The couple had no children during their marriage and "the parties experienced irreconcilable differences which led to an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage; the parties' efforts at reconciliation have failed and future attempts at reconciliation would be impractical and not in the best interests of the family," Mary Czuba wrote the court.

According to Czuba's wife, they have acquired rental property, their marital home, automobiles, furniture and furnishings, various bank accounts, stocks and bonds, retirement accounts, personal property and insurance policies.

"Accordingly, petitioner should be awarded a fair, just and equitable share and proportion of the said marital property," Mary Czuba's four-page divorce petition states.