Judge tells Gest no, Liza wins round one

By Stone Martindale Sep 26, 2006, 2:46 GMT

Liza with a Z! Z is for Zilch-how much Gest is getting off Liza... EPA/SIMELA PANTZARTZI

A New York judge has thrown out the $10 million suit Gest filed against estranged wife Liza Minnelli in 2003, saying that there was "no triable issue of fact" in the case.

Gest sued Liza a few months after the couple separated, claiming that Minnelli abused him during her alleged alcoholic rages, causing him headaches and other physical and emotional trauma that required him to be hospitalized.

Minnelli filed for divorce the next day.

State Supreme Court Judge Jane Solomon ruled that Gest's doctor had not been able to refute Minnelli's medical expert, who said that Gest's headaches were caused by a type of herpes virus.

Gest's doctor testified that his patient had tested negative for the virus.

Gest asked Supreme Court Judge Harold Beeler, who's handling the divorce proceedings, to set aside his prenuptial agreement, saying he never would have entered into it if he had known that Minnelli was "a violent alcoholic with herpes," as an unnamed source shared with the New York Post's Page Six.

Lorraine Nadel, Gest's attorney, vowed that she would appeal Judge Solomon's decision and told reporters that her client was "shocked" and "stunned" by the ruling.

Allegedly Liza threw a lamp at Gest in a London hotel and then hit him in the face with her fists when he tried to calm her down.

Now left is Minnelli's $2 million countersuit against Gest, in which she maintains that her he stole money from her.

The Post reported the content of the couple's most recent court filings, in which Minnelli accused Gest of trying to poison her and he said that she had kept her condition a secret until after they had had "unprotected sexual relations."

"David was wrecked" when she finally told him, Gest's bodyguard Imad Handi, told the Post earlier this month. "It was the beginning of the end of the marriage. He couldn't trust her anymore" and it "turned him off" from having further marital relations.