ELIZABETH, New Jersey – We waited and waited and then waited some more. Finally, a little after 8 p.m. Thursday night outside the Union County courthouse in Elizabeth, New Jersey, former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey and his estranged wife Dina Matos McGreevey separately exited the courthouse. Their attorneys later said a settlement had been reached concerning the custody and parenting of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter, Jacqueline.

While the agreement is sealed, I watched the demeanor of each participant and my gut tells me the former governor was clearly victorious. As he walked to his car, McGreevey told reporters he was so happy.  He seemed to be overcome with joy. Stephen Haller, who represents McGreevey, succinctly added that his client was “absolutely delighted.”

Matos McGreevey on the other hand was silent as she walked past the press; she had a smile on her face, but seemed nervous. Her attorney, John Post, was measured, describing Matos McGreevey as “satisfied.”

Jim McGreevey has been seeking equal parenting time with his daughter for some time now. Whether he got that 50/50 split he wanted is anybody’s guess, but I think it’s darn close to what he was looking for.

Now it is back to square one for the remaining issues which include financials, along with a fraud and libel claim by Matos McGreevey. She asserts in legal documents that the former governor defrauded her into marriage because he knew he was gay but married her anyway. She also alleges her reputation as a hospital fundraiser has been damaged because McGreevey has referred to her in the press as homophobic.

It all gets underway again on Monday.  Stay tuned to In Session for all the latest.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

SEATTLE, Washington -- Naveed Haq was taking a prescription drug known to induce homicidal ideas on rare occasions. The disclosure came Thursday as attorneys for the 32-year-old presented their insanity defense for Haq’s actions on July 28, 2006. Haq is accused of fatally shooting one woman and wounding five others at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Defense expert Dr. Robert Julien testified Haq, who has a history of mental illness, was prescribed Effexor in July 2005 to help control his depression. The drug, however, is an anti-depressant that is not government-approved for treating bipolar depression – a condition Haq had been diagnosed as having since 1996.

“The incident may well not have occurred had lithium or other diagnosis and treatment with anti-psychotic drugs been continued,” Julien said. Haq was taken off lithium earlier in July 2005 because he complained of tremors, a common side affect of the mood stabilizing drug. Julien, an anesthesiologist and psychopharmacologist, studies how drugs affect the brain and behaviors.

Another doctor testified Haq recognized he had mood disorders beginning in the seventh grade – a sign of bipolar disorder and not schizoaffective disorder. Dr. James Missett explained that bipolar disorders are most likely to present themselves as depression in teenagers. Haq had told Missett he would experience crying or rage for no reason, saying “I would wake up and ask myself what kind of day am I going to have today?”

Dr. James Missett said the symptoms persisted and increased as Haq grew older but that Haq did not tell anyone until he was in dental school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was subsequently diagnosed as bipolar. According to Missett, medical reports indicate Haq complained he heard voices that would tell him to do violent things, and had hallucinations of people whose bodies would appear to fade and glow. Significant, Missett said, because Haq also later reported “his perception of his own body glowing at the Jewish Federation.”

–In Session staff

NEW YORK — And what more is there to say about the McGreevey, Matos McGreevey mess? Should she have known better? Should he have known himself better? Maybe, but there is one lesson we can all take away from their sordid affair. And it’s a lesson about how not to get a divorce.

So, some dos and don’ts when you say “I do”: Do think about whether you should get married at all. Do communicate with your partner about who you are before you do. Do think about whether to have children and, if you do, do keep their best interests at heart. Don’t lie about who you are. Don’t lie to yourself about who your partner is. And if you do make a mistake or somehow fall out of love with your spouse, do the right thing by her and the children you chose to have.

That means, if you do say “I do,” then do remember your promises. And keep them. And at the very least don’t humiliate your spouse with a public display of your irresistible impulses. Most of all, don’t work through your divorce demons in court. It’s undignified. And it simply doesn’t work. That’s the Last Word.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington – Jurors in the trial of Naveed Haq learned more details Wednesday about the defendant’s mental state in the years, days before, and possibly during the time he opened fire at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Under direct examination by defense attorney Wes Richards, Dr. James Missett, a forensic psychiatrist, testified the severity of Haq’s mental illness “is extraordinarily severe, about as severe as I’ve seen in anybody.”

Missett spent most of the day linking characteristics of bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder with Haq’s history of mental illness. Missett previously testified Haq was unable to tell right from wrong when he killed one woman and wounded five others at the Jewish Federation on July 28, 2006 because he suffers from a bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Haq’s lawyers contend Haq was insane and had a diminished capacity at the time of the shootings.

According to medical records, the 32-year-old first began experiencing mental health problems when he was in high school and was diagnosed as having a bipolar disorder in 1996 while in dental school. Over the next 10 years, Haq experienced delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, mood swings and tried to take his own life. He was treated with various drugs but thought lithium best helped him control his behaviors and moods.

Missett told jurors the severity of Haq’s symptoms increased dramatically in July 2005 after he had been taken off of lithium.

Jurors also heard from a man who first met Haq through a mutual friend in 2004. Like the previous witnesses who had interacted with Haq before July 28, 2006, Kelly Turner portrayed Haq as an unstable individual.

Kelly described Haq as someone who could not keep a job and recalled Haq walking out of a telemarketing job selling ballpoint pens on his first day on the job. “He thought the sales manager was watching him, looking funny at him, standing behind him, and talking about him behind his back.” Turner said Haq also seemed to have “little man syndrome” because he tended to overreact to situations by shouting loudly and using vulgarities.

–In Session staff

NEW YORK — Eliot Spitzer may have topped Jim McGreevey in terms of sex scandal sordidness. But now, as the divorce goes to court, Dina McGreevey is in a very different situation from her fellow former first lady Silda Spitzer. “I was essentially in the dark,” she told the New York Times, “…he never told me he was gay.”

But some are saying she knew more than she’s letting on, because the New Jersey press has reported three-way sexual trysts with the former governor and his wife. And if that’s true, her critics say Dina had to know her husband was gay.

Well, it’s true that most political wives are savvier than they present themselves to be. Who knows, for example, what Mrs. Spitzer knew about her husband’s sexual habits? But Dina McGreevey is a different sort of political wife. One who’s fortunes are more tethered to her ex-husband than Silda Spitzer’s will ever be because Dina never graduated from college. And now she’s forced to tell her story to Oprah and to tell-all in print. Silda’s Harvard law degree is a far more dignified contingency plan.

So listen up, women: get a degree, a career, a job. As much as you love your husband, you may just want something else to fall back on. That way his bad behavior won’t be the Last Word on your future.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington — A psychiatrist who met with Naveed Haq four times since October 2006 testified at the Seattle trial Tuesday that he suffers from bipolar disorder with psychotic features. Dr. James Missett, an expert hired by the defense, said Haq has been mentally ill for at least a decade and was mentally ill in the time leading up to the shootings at the Jewish Federation of Seattle.

Haq is charged with killing one woman and wounding five others in a shooting at the Jewish Federation there. He faces life in prison if convicted of murder, kidnapping and malicious harrassment charges, Washington’s hate crime law.  Haq is mounting an insanity defense.

Earlier in the day, Naveed Haq’s father said he spent the evening of July 27, 2006, one day before the shootings, with his son. Other than noticing that Naveed did not eat much at dinner, Mian Haq said he did not notice anything unusual about his son’s behavior or speech. He said Naveed “was in a good mood” and appeared to have more energy compared to days earlier when he “seemed really down” and “sluggish.”

Mian Haq also recalled trying to dissuade the defendant both that night and the next morning from going to Seattle. The elder Haq said he told his son he didn’t think it was a good idea because, among other things, every time Naveed would go, something bad would happen. “Either he would get a ticket or something would get stolen.”

Haq said he first learned his son was involved in the shooting at the Jewish Federation after friends told him that police had detained a Pakistani man in his 30s. Subsequently, another friend called to tell him the suspect was named Naveed Afzal Haq. “I thought there is only one Naveed Afzal Haq,” he said.

-In Session staff

ELIZABETH, New Jersey — I am here in Elizabeth, New Jersey for the divorce trial of former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey. There’s only one problem…there is no trial.

In Session has learned that settlement talks are continuing, but an announcement scheduled to be made this afternoon by both sides may not be happening.

The big question is whether the McGreeveys are actually resolving issues they have been fought over for several years now. And what about that fraud claim brought by Dina Matos McGreevey? She wants damages, she says, for being fraudently induced into marriage by the former governor.

McGreevey resigned from office in 2004, announcing at a press conference that he was a “gay American.” McGreveey also told the nation at that time he had been having an affair with his male homeland security advisor.

Yesterday, attorneys for both parties issued a joint statement saying, “We are happy to report on behalf of both of our clients that they have made progress toward settling their case.” At the center of many contentious issues has been the custody of the couple’s 6-year-old daughter.  In addition to custody and support, Matos McGreevey is asking for $600,000 to compensate her for the life she lost as first lady after her husband resigned.

If talks break down, there may just be that divorce trial…stay tuned to In Session.

–Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent

NEW YORK –Jim McGreevey is back in the news. His was not the first sex scandal to bring down a politician and it certainly wasn’t the last. Just in the three years since Governor McGreevey left the statehouse and his wife, we’ve also lost Governor Spitzer here in New York to a sex scandal. Toe-tapper Larry Craig is holding on to his Senate seat for dear life. And don’t forget Detroit’s mayor and prolific sex text messenger, Kwame Kilpatrick.

Ah, the private foibles of middle-aged politicians. Is it weakness? Perversion? Corruption? Or is it just to be expected? I mean, do we really think politicians are having more illicit sex now than they have in the past?

What’s changed? Not the men. Not the sex. But here’s what has: the news media that now prefers to report on sex rather than to utter the real dirty word in politics, “issues.”

Gas prices, the mortgage mess, health care, the war. It’s time we start to focus on what our governors and other elected officials are doing in office. Not on what they’re doing in bed.

And that is the Last Word.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor

SEATTLE, Washington – The leader of the men’s group at Word of Faith testified Monday at the trial of Naveed Haq. Albert Montelongo said Naveed Haq attended the one thousand-strong non-denominational church in Kennewick, WA for four or five months starting in late 2005. Haq found Christianity to be a loving religion, said Montelongo, and was baptized in the church.

One of the defendant’s treating psychiatrists told jurors the drug lithium is “the cornerstone for treatment of the whole bipolar spectrum.” (The defense, of course, points to the fact that Naveed Haq was taken off this medication as one of the contributing factors to his actions on July 28, 2006.) “If you take the lithium away,” said the doctor, “then things will start to unravel very quickly.”

Haq’s father testified earlier in the day his son made a request the evening before the rampage; “I want to be admitted voluntarily,” Mian Haq said his son told him. “I am going to have a relapse.”

Haq, a 30-year-old Muslim American, is accused of killing one woman and wounding five others in an attack at the Jewish Federation.

–In Session staff

NEW YORK — Here’s a case you may want to pay attention to. Beginning Tuesday, the divorce battle between former New Jersey governor Jim McGreevey and his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey heads to the courtroom. The couple was married for about 4 years with a young daughter when McGreevey came out in a 2004 press conference, saying he was a “gay American.” That breaking news was not the only bombshell. The then-governor admitted to having an affair with one of his male staff members.

A Union County, New Jersey family court judge has basically begged the couple repeatedly to settle the matter out of court without success. So now a very public trial is set to begin. Some of the issues to be litigated are: child custody, financial support and fraud.

Although the first part of the case, concerning child custody and parenting, will be closed, the remainder of the trial will be open to the public for all to hear exactly what went on inside the walls of the New Jersey governor’s mansion.

Matos McGreevey is asking for $600,000 to compensate for the lifestyle she would have led as first lady of New Jersey if her husband had completed his term. Additionally, McGreevey’s wife has filed a claim of fraud, claiming that the former governor married her so he could achieve his political dreams as a straight husband and father.

McGreevey’s lawyers want to call to the stand a man by the name of Ted Pedersen. He is a former driver of the McGreeveys who says he engaged in sexual romps with the couple during their courtship and marriage. Jim McGreevey wants to use this testimony to try and prove his wife knew he was attracted to men even before they married and that she was not defrauded regarding his sexual orientation.

According to a legal brief written by McGreevey’s counsel, the former governor will testify. “Mr. Pedersen’s testimony will be corroborated by the testimony of the plaintiff.” Matos McGreevey denies the trysts ever occurred.

In Session will be on the ground covering this case. We’ll see you in New Jersey.

– Jean Casarez, In Session correspondent