Question about divorce and debt

What is the name of your state? NY

Here's the situation... My friend is 24 and will be receiving a payment from a trust fund in about a year. The total payment will be about $70k and he intends on using about half of it to pay off his father's debt, which he estimates to be about $30k.

His father is currently married to and living with his 3rd wife. They've been married for 18 years. The issue is, his father's wife was horrible to both of them and has caused a lot of pain in their lives, and my friend doesn't want to pay off any debt that she individually might be responsible for. They all live in NY.

So, the question is, given the above circumstances (and assuming that most of the $30k in debt was accrued since they've been married), what happens to that debt if they were to divorce? Is his wife responsible for a certain percentage? His father has been planning on divorcing her anyway and is waiting on the sale of a home they owned.

I'm telling my friend that he should encourage his father to go through with the divorce before he gets the said payment, even if she took only $1k of the debt with her it would still be money in my friend's pocket.

Any thoughts on the matter would be great.

Thanks!

Assets and debt acquired during a marriage belong to both spouses.

Okay, so any amount of the debt they accumulated after their marriage is split at the time of divorce... Is it a flat 50/50 deal or is it weighed in either direction, and if so, what determines it?

Thanks for all of the help... It's really important to us/him to find out roughly how much of this debt she's responsible for, every dollar that she takes with her is a dollar in my friend's pocket. His father is a good guy who's had rough times but he's primed for a change. Again, this is all in NY.

Mister Angry

Honestly, they'd be nuts to pay off anything for Dad until the final divorce decree. None of us can know exactly what a judge will decide as to the particulars of how this is divided.