Minnelli and Gest divorce heats up, round two of face-off

By Stone Martindale Sep 10, 2006, 23:36 GMT

"Herpes Schmerpes" EPA/SIMELA PANTZARTZI

David Gest has asked a judge in Manhattan to set aside his prenuptial agreement with Liza Minnelli, in the latest development in their long-running divorce battle.

According to the New York Times, Gest's lawyers say Gest had reason to believe that Minnelli was infected with herpes, was an alcoholic and was violence-prone, and that she had willingly concealed these conditions from him before their marriage.

Allegedly if Gest had known these flaws, he would “not have willingly entered into the prenuptial agreement,” the lawyers argued.

“There was nondisclosure, substantial nondisclosure, of several material issues,” Susan Moss, a lawyer for Gest, a producer and promoter, said after a court appearance yesterday.

Moss declined to further characterize the “material issues,” noting that she had made her motion in the judge’s chambers and that the record, as is customary in divorce proceedings, was sealed.

Gest’s lawyers were more specific about his accusations in an interview before the hearing yesterday and in papers filed in a related civil case.

Gest alleges that Minnelli beat him while she was drunk, and he seeks $10 million in damages.

“The assault substantially affected his health and his life,” said Lorraine Nadel, Gest’s lawyer in that case.

If the couple’s prenuptial agreement were nullified, it could change the terms of the divorce settlement.

Minnelli’s lawyer, Israel Rubin, who represented the singer in court yesterday, declined to comment on specific allegations, and would say only, “This whole thing is ridiculous.”

In papers filed by Gest on June 22 in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, Gest’s lawyer at the time, Lawrence A. Omansky, said that Minnelli had accused Gest of lying about his claim that she exposed him to Herpes because he was “merely looking to cook up an excuse for a lawsuit.”

Minnelli has also accused Gest of being a hypochondriac and of “inventing and/or creating illusory injuries,” according to the court papers.

In the documents, Minnelli claimed that “she lived in fear” that Gest was “trying to poison her with drugs,” and that if she hurt Gest, it was in self-defense.

Gest’s lawyers asked the matrimonial judge, State Supreme Court Justice Harold B. Beeler, to order a trial to determine the validity of the prenuptial agreement.

“We expect to go to trial in this case as soon as the judge will give us a trial date, which we expect will be after the new year,” Moss said.