Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas will start four days of intense mediation on Wednesday to try to thrash out a divorce agreement, a New York court has heard.
A hearing held on Tuesday revealed the former couple will meet this week to resolve issues in their split, including custody of their daughters Delphine, one, and Willa, three.
Turner’s lawyer said they would go ‘full hog’ to resolve the matter during the process, which will likely take place at a legal office in Manhattan.
The court was told that Jonas wants 50/50 custody and a judge set a January 2 date for a trial for deciding custody of the girls, with lawyers claiming there could be multiple witnesses for both sides.
Neither Jonas nor Turner, one of the stars of Game of Thrones, were present but Turner joined the hearing via Zoom.
Sophie Turner was seen stepping out in New York City on Tuesday after a court hearing on her divorce from Joe Jonas
The court hearing revealed Joe is seeking 50/50 custody of daughters Willa, three, and Delphine, one
The hearing was the first at the court in New York but the split also involves divorce cases in Miami and the UK.
Jonas filed for divorce in Miami on September 1 with sources close to him claiming that Turner had been out partying too much, leaving him alone to look after their daughters.
Turner, 27, fired back accusing Jonas, 34, a member of the pop group The Jonas brothers, of refusing to hand over the girls’ passports so they could return to England with her.
She cited an international child abduction law as grounds for the children being with her.
Both sides have agreed that the girls will remain in New York until the matter is resolved.
Turner is staying at an apartment in the city owned by Taylor Swift, who previously dated Jonas.
Before the hearing Turner briefly appeared on a monitor in a room with a colorful painting in the background.
She appeared to be in a good mood and said that it was ‘all good’ once the sound problems were resolved.
Her lawyer Stephen Cullen told the court that there was ‘some difficulty’ between the two parties with regards to scheduling a trial to decide custody of the girls.
Speaking in a thick Scottish accent, the Edinburgh-born lawyer said that Jonas could not make any dates in November, and December was problematic too.
Cullen said he wanted an ‘amicable resolution’ in the case in the quickest fashion.
He said that the trial, which would take place under Hague laws concerning child abduction, would last at most two-and-a-half days as it would cover a ‘very narrow’ range of issues such as where the children’s habitual residence was.
A dressed down Sophie, who is crashing at Taylor Swift’s Tribeca home amid the divorce and custody battle, was seen sending her daughters off in a SUV last week before heading back inside the singer’s townhouse
Swift, who was not seen with Turner that morning, was pictured returning to her townhouse last Tuesday after spending two nights in Kansas City with new beau Travis Kelce
Over the weekend the two friends were seen leaving Italian restaurant Emilio’s Ballato in Soho after having dinner together
Cullen said that it was ‘essential’ that a trial took place this year because both sides were ‘very young litigants’ who had ‘extremely young children’.
Judge Katherine Polk Failla asked Cullen if he wanted a trial set given that mediation was taking place.
He said he wanted it to run ‘parallel’ to the mediation.
Cullen said: ‘We are starting mediation tomorrow (Wednesday) and are going full hog to do everything we possibly can to resolve this matter’.
Cullen said that the interim order signed by the judge keeping the children in New York would be ‘addressed head-on’ during the mediation, raising the prospect Turner may return to England soon.
Cullen also told the court that Jonas was seeking 50/50 custody of the girls, a claim that he said would ‘evaporate’ many of Jonas’s defenses in the case.
Jonas’s lawyer Richard Min told the court that his client was on a world tour which was taking a break on December 9 and so could not be available for a trial before then.
He said that he could neither be ‘optimistic or pessimistic about mediation’.
Min said: ‘Four full days of mediation is a lot of time for these parties to sit in a room together and iron out their differences’.
Min said that contrary to what Cullen claimed there would be a ‘significant’ number of witnesses and that at the minimum a trial would take five days, possibly longer.
In a New York court hearing Tuesday, lawyers for Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas confirmed the couple will begin a four-day mediation process to thrash out a divorce and custody agreement on Wednesday
Last week, the two agreed to an interim consent order to keep the kids in New York after Sophie demanded Joe return them to the UK
Last week, the two agreed to an interim consent order to keep the kids in New York after Sophie demanded Joe return them to the UK
He said: ‘These are two individuals who have a lot of family, friends, social contacts and business relationships that factor into their decision making and their discussions’.
Min called the split a ‘breakdown of a family unit’ which he said would be ‘relevant to the issues’ arising in the case.
According to Min there would be ‘several key witnesses in this case’ and it was not just a matter of Turner and Jonas testifying.
Cullen said he wanted to ‘vehemently disagree with the need for a raft of depositions’.
He told the court that both sides had an ‘obligation to bring down the mercury’ and resolve the case in the quickest and least expensive way possible.
Judge Failla set the trial date for January 2 but said she had ‘high hopes for the mediation’.
Cullen told the court that the ‘parties are both seeing their children which is great’, describing the access from Jonas and Turner as ‘unfettered’.
Currently the daughters are with Turner, the court heard.
Previous legal filings have detailed how the couple’s three year marriage rapidly broke up in August after Jonas reportedly saw Turner insulting him on their Ring camera.
He filed for divorce two weeks later claiming their relationship was ‘irretrievably broken’ and sources close to the singer tried to portray Turner as partying too hard and leaving him looking after their daughters.
But Turner responded with the lawsuit in New York under international child abduction laws.
In court papers she claimed that the couple sold their home in Miami in March and that they bought a $9million home near Oxford, England, which they meant as their ‘forever home’.
Turner went further in legal filings in Miami where she included a letter Jonas wrote to the seller of the property that showed him gushing about the prospect of living there.
The former couple paid a 10 percent deposit of $900,000 on the house on July 7, two months before they split up.
Jonas allegedly wrote to the seller: ‘When my wife and I decided we were going to spend more time in the UK and search for a permanent home, our daughter expressed three unwavering requirements: having chickens, a pony and a Wendy house.
‘While many of the houses we viewed met this criteria, the moment we turned the corner and caught sight of the charming blue shutters adorning (redacted) we experienced a sense of magic unlike anything we had felt before’.
The sale of the house is set to be finalized on December 2nd but has reportedly not yet gone through, with the divorce potentially throwing a wrench in the deal.
