Gabriel Villa, 90 and his “wife” Cristina Carta Villa, 59, tied the knot in 1994 and were happily married for over 20 years, raising a son together while living in New York and France. The couple initially met a friend’s house and it was “love at first sight,” says Christina, despite Gabriel being 30 years her senior. Things hit the fan though as she recently filed a lawsuit against her husband alleging fraud.
Apparently, Gabriel had secretly filed for divorce in the Dominican Republic a few months after their wedding in attempt to protect his assets. The couple shared a one bedroom condo on West 55th street in New York City worth roughly $1.4 Million and Christina’s curiosity arose when a tax bill arrived and her name was not on it. She soon hired a lawyer to look into the matter and learned that her husband had her name removed from the deed, using his divorce papers from the 90s as proof she is not an owner.
Allegedly, Gabriel had told Dominican authorities that living with his wife was “unbearable” and hired lawyers to represent each spouse, citing “incompatibility of temperaments” as the reason for the divorce. In her lawsuit, Christina says that “she has no recollection of [giving] any authorization to anyone to proceed with a divorce, or even thinking about divorce from the man she had just recently married.”
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.
It will be very interesting to see how this one will pan out.
