The glamorous housewife who allegedly placed a $2 million hit on her estranged husband suffered an awful upbringing with an alcoholic father and sexual abuse according to a bombshell admission by her own mother.
While many struggle to understand why Tatyana Remley would want to kill her husband of 12 years, Mark Remley, those closest to her point to the 42-year old’s traumatic childhood .
Her first husband, Ken Woolcott — who she married in 2005 — told The Post Tatyana was born in Arizona but she was raised in remote Bend, Oregon, where she only attended school until the fourth grade.
When her parents, Vera and Brian, decided to move to a small town in northern San Diego County called Valley Center, they didn’t enroll their daughter into school, according to court documents obtained by The Post.
“My husband … wanted to do home school, whatever, once we came to California,” said Vera in a 2009 deposition. “We had a lot of difficulties with [Brian].
“If I could go back, I would undo everything, and see to it that she be in school … I’m very sorry, because I believe in school.”
Vera testified on behalf of her daughter, who was at the time embroiled in a custody battle with Woolcott over their young son.
Vera made several startling revelations during her testimony, including that her older child, a son named Vladimir, had allegedly sexually molested Tatyana when she was a child. Tatyana was 13 or 15 years old when she told her mother of the sexual abuse.
“I was shocked and I really didn’t want to have much of anything to do with my son after that,” Vera testified. “Before that I was suspicious because, I don’t know. He wasn’t doing good.
“He is so damaged by the drugs. … He talks funny and he hated my daughter. When she was born, he hated her extremely, always trying to make some kind of way to make her cry or hurt or something. Hated her, because he felt like she took him … she took me away from him.”
Atempts by The Post to reach both Vera and Vladimir for comment were unsucessful.
In his own deposition, Woolcott — a successful lawyer and businessman, who was then part owner of the NBA team Seattle SuperSonics — said Tatyana lacked essential parenting skills because of her upbringing, the alleged abuses she experienced as a child and her parents’ religious beliefs.
“Tatyana was kept isolated/captive on rural property in Valley Center, without school, social activities and interaction with her community,” Woolcott said. “Moreover, I now understand that [one] of their religious tenets is the rejection of traditional medicine and medical care professionals.
“She also was denied access to childhood friends out of the parents’ fear any such friends would lead to discovery of her captivity. Essentially, Tatyana was captive for about 10 years (9 – 20 years old) with little, if any, contact with the outside world, education, social interaction or structure.”
Woolcott was 43 when he married then-23-year-old Tatyana. She soon gave birth to their son, but the marriage lasted only 11 months and the pair divorced in April 2006.
Woolcott told The Post his former wife had said her father was an alcoholic. Woolcott also said in an affidavit Vera was “dysfunctional in the extreme” and he didn’t trust her around his young son.
“It is unclear to me how they survived over the last decade with no discernible income or employment,” Woolcott said of his former in-laws. “This is a tragic set of circumstances.”
Tatyana’s grandmother, Sasha, alleged she and her family stole money from her for years, according to the court documents, and reached out to Woolcott multiple times saying her own family had control of her funds and would not let her access them for things such as medical costs like fixing her teeth.
Doug Cross, Sasha’s close friend, also provided a deposition to the court corroborating the grandmother’s claims against her family.
“Sasha repeatedly told me Tayana took the money, spent it on a trip to Italy for herself, refused Sasha’s request for the return of the money and has never repaid her or offered to repay her.”
After an almost decade-long custody battle, a judge found Woolcott was more fit to provide and take care of their son in Seattle. In the meantime, Tatyana gave birth to a daughter and had failed engagements with at least three different men, according to the court documents.
Woolcott said Tatyana got her GED with his assistance so she could enter the workforce, but his former wife refused to work.
Tatyana’s former friends, including those in exclusive Southern California polo clubs, said she was always the “life of the party” and made it obvious she was “targeting rich men” who could bankroll her lavish lifestyle.
Mark Remley did just that after they met at a local Starbucks and married in March 2011, pals of the couple told The Post. The two shared a passion for money, riding horses, drugs and participating in orgies.
The couple is infamously known for starting a multimillion-dollar horse show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego, Calif. called “Valitar” that was canceled after just a few performances in 2012.
“Their lifestyle was reckless; it was toxic,” a friend of Tatyana’s told The Post. “They were both having sexual relationships with all kinds of other people. There were prostitutes, strippers, sex clubs.”
She was arrested on Aug. 2 after Mark told authorities about his estranged wife’s plot to kill him, which he found out from a mutual friend. San Diego Sheriff’s orchestrated the take down with an undercover detective, who posed as a hit man and met Tatyana at a Starbucks.
Remley has been charged with solicitation of murder, carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle and carrying a loaded firearm in public.
She is due back in court on Oct. 16 for a readiness hearing, court officials said.
With additional reporting from Michael Kaplan.
