Greenwich Roundup: 04/19/10 Mom tried to nix Greenwich boy's nups with 'lies' and lawsuits

Monday, April 19, 2010

04/19/10 Mom tried to nix Greenwich boy's nups with 'lies' and lawsuits

Greenwich Man Sues Mother For "Terroristic Binge" Over Wife

Photo: Denis Joseph and Diana David endured harassment from his mother.

Enraged Mom Lia Joseph Goes On 'Terroristic Binge' To Ruin Her Son Who Lives In Greenwich

Mom annoyed when son marries "gold digging" fiance

Goes on campaign to ruin his real estate and business interests

Tried to get her Greenwich son's wife fired from her job at TriOptima

A woman was so convinced her son's fiancee was a no-good gold digger that she did everything she could to break the couple up, even harassing the fiancee's ailing father in Ohio and trying to get her fired from her job.

The New York Post reported Lia Joseph, 61, was enraged when her real-estate-developer son Denis, 34, and his betrothed, Diana David, 28, tied the knot last October anyway - without the prenuptial agreement Lia had demanded.

In response, Lia allegedly did what she could to make sure her son had no money for his bride to take, and went on a campaign to ruin her son's business interests in Brooklyn and Connecticut, Denis claims.

"It seems to be some sort of twisted Freudian thing," a source close to the family said.

After Denis' mother filed two lawsuits against him claiming to be the owner of his property, Denis had enough: He filed his own suit against Lia last week in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing her of going on a "terroristic binge."

"Fresh from a 9.5-year divorce case from Denis Joseph's father, Lia Joseph turned her full maniacal rage against her son, his fiancee and (Diana's) family," he claims in court papers.

Lia repeatedly called Diana's office at the finance firm TriOptima, asking for references so it seemed like Diana was looking for another job, the lawsuit alleges.

At Passover dinner last year, she threatened to sue Diana's family, and just days before the wedding she called Diana's father, who needed heart-bypass surgery, to tell him his daughter was a gold digger, Denis claims.

In an email sent to Diana, Lia blasted the young woman as "self-centered and truly dangerous" and warned her she had no rights to "our family properties" - a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion in Greenwich and a property in Brooklyn that Denis leased to a car wash.

"HE IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY," Lia wrote about her son.

"In her twisted mind, Ms Joseph viewed the Greenwich property and the Brooklyn property as 'family' property, even though there is no dispute that Denis Joseph is the sole owner," Denis wrote in court papers.

Lia wasn't invited to the wedding, and the day after her son got hitched, she filed a lawsuit in Connecticut, claiming she was a co-owner of the Greenwich property, but has postponed the case each time the court asked her to prove the claim, her son said in his lawsuit.

In December, she filed suit in Brooklyn Supreme Court seeking to divide the property in Brooklyn . Then she called the owner of the car wash, told him she was the real landlord, and convinced him to stop paying rent, Denis claims.

Lia also allegedly talked trash about Diana to her dad.

"She called me a number of times, directly at work, spending an hour or more on the phone with me and saying all kinds of things that were very disconcerting," Frank David told The Post.

Lia claimed "that Diana was a gold digger and that she was influencing Denis in a nasty way, none of which is the situation," Frank said. "We know Diana, and we know what kind of person she is."

Diana, a Stony Brook University graduate who earned a 3.9 GPA, was awarded the prestigious Churchill Scholarship from the University of Cambridge in 2004 along with other academic honors, her father said.

"It's inconceivable to us," he said of Lia's claims.

Denis declined to comment. Lia could not be reached and her lawyer declined comment.