Woman, 59, sues her husband, 90, of 20 years after he secretly divorced her months after their wedding ‘to protect his assets’

[Teh One Who Knocks]

By Khaleda Rahman For Dailymail.com




A woman is suing her husband of 20 years after he secretly divorced her months after they were married to protect his assets, she says.

Cristina Carta Villa, 59, married Gabriel Villa, 90, in 1994 – and they have since raised a son, Lorenzo and shared their time between their homes in New York and France.

But she is now suing him to nullify a divorce she says she was never aware of and to stop him from selling their Manhattan apartment.

According to the New York Post, she has filed a lawsuit to nullify the divorce her husband secretly arranged in the Dominican Republic four months after they wed.

She branded it a ‘fraud’ and claims she never knew about it or gave her consent for the divorce, which was not registered in New York.

In a suit filed at the Manhattan Supreme Court, Villa says her husband filed to dissolve their marriage in the Caribbean nation, even though neither live there.

She says the divorce is not legal as she does not remember giving permission for it to proceed – and because neither spouse was in court for it.

Gabriel hired lawyers to act on behalf of the pair and cited an ‘incompatibility of temperaments’ as the reason for the split, the suit alleges.

Meanwhile, the couple had bought a condo on West 55th Street, after she left her job teaching at Boston College to be with her older partner, who Villa describes as a ‘very charismatic’ and ‘intelligent’ man.

‘He was absolutely charming and despite our age difference, it was love at first sight,’ she told the New York Post. ‘It was and somehow it’s still a great love.’

Their relationship was so strong, that when he became ill, she was ‘always at his side’, she said. He had her make his healthcare decisions and gave her power of attorney, she claims.

But she added: ‘I realize now that during all these years of joy and happiness, and of difficult moments we shared together, my husband lied to me and had the Dominican divorce on the back of his mind. It’s what is hurting me the most.’

She says she only found out about the existence of the divorce in November when a tax bill arrived at her home and her name was not on it.

When she hired a lawyer to get to the bottom of it, she discovered her husband had tried to remove her name from the deed – using the divorce as proof she was not the property’s owner.

She believes her husband wants to sell the apartment, in a building where condos go for around $1.4million, according to the Post, to his daughter Marina.

He is using an ‘illegal and fraudulent’ divorce to rob her, Christina Villa claims.

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