He was noted statewide as a man who sent his child to Mexico during a prolonged and "sensational"[2] divorce battle with his French-born heiress wife.
"[5] In 1887 Weyse bought the residence of pioneer brickmaker and fellow Common Council member Joseph Mullaly at 19 College Street, in today's Chinatown.
As a real estate boom hit Southern California, the land was divided for sale, and the winery building was leased to the firm of Weisendanger & Nardmore, which overhauled the machinery and reopened in 1891 as a starch manufactory from potatoes.
On December 10, 1891, the boiler exploded, almost leveling the building and heavily damaging the adjoining family quarters, where Otto Weyse was the only occupant; he escaped injury.
They lived for a time on Staten Island, New York, and within a few weeks, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Weyse began to physically abuse his wife.
The alleged contract provided that: all children born of the union of the couple shall be taught to regard the children by Mrs. Weyse's first husband [Naud] as brothers and sisters; that they shall never be reproached with the fact that their father [Weyse] was a German; that they shall under no circumstances be raised as Catholics without their father's consent; that all the wife's business should be transacted by her new husband and that the question, "mine or thine" with reference to property, should never come up between the couple.
[17]In that same month it was discovered that Otto, the couple's son, was absent from Los Angeles, and detectives found that he had been spirited to a ranch near Tijuana, Mexico by his father.
A warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of kidnapping, but the child was returned to Los Angeles in advance of any legal action.