By Martha Neil | ABA Journal
In what lawyers are calling a landmark ruling, a New York appeals court has upheld a Long Island judge’s decision to void an prenuptial agreement that the wife of a millionaire says she was tricked into signing by false promises made by her husband-to-be, days before the wedding.
Elizabeth Cioffi-Petrakis says she was presented with the document and an ultimatum four days before her scheduled 1998 wedding to Peter Petrakis, according to the New York Post and Yahoo’s Shine blog.
Young and naive, she believed Petrakis when he told her orally that his lawyers had made him get a prenuptial agreement signed to protect his business and promised to destroy the document once they had children and put her name on the deed to the house, Cioffi-Petrakis now says. She also says Petrakis gave her an ultimatum four days before the wedding for which her father had already paid $40,000, telling her to sign the document or it wouldn’t occur.
If you’d like to discuss family law, contact with Kaine Fisher, head of RLG’s Family Law Department, kfisher@roselawgroup.com.
