Worse than Ashley Madison Hack? Maybe a Mail-Order Bride…

August 25th, 2015. By LucyC

Is it international infidelity month? First Ashley Madison goes to the mat over a massive data breach—and is now facing a class action in Canada for failing to live up to its promises… read into that what you may, and this week news of a yet another partnership gone sour —this one between a “Russian mail order bride” and a millionaire financier. He was fooling around on his wife—not through Ashley Madison but through a catalog called “Meet Truly Beautiful Russian Women by Mail”. (Getting a picture here?) However, all did not go according to plan, but then these things rarely do. According to legal papers, the Russian mail-order bride was not playing by “the rules” (whose rules, I wonder). The whole thing is positively Shakespearean.

The backstory is that in 1993 Ekatarina Petuhova, aka Katherine Nelson, hooked up with A US citizen named Neeraj Nelson. According to court papers, the marriage didn’t last long because Mr. Nelson discovered Ekatarina was having sex with an Armenian pimp named “Gari”, shortly after she landed in LAX. (A remedy for jet lag, possibly?) Nelson had the marriage annulled shortly after the wedding, as you do in these scenarios. He never even consummated the marriage, he told a judge. “After having been used by Ekaterina, I would never again place an ad to meet a Russian woman! I have learned a lesson,” Neeraj says in his September 1997 filing for an annulment. So, human trafficking in any other nationality would do?

Whatever. As it turns out, Petuhova wasn’t stateside long enough to get any relevant US paperwork, so was facing deportation.

Enter Delphi Financial Group CEO Robert Rosenkranz, who was and is married. Somehow, he met Ekatarina. They dated, as you do when you’re married—witness Ashely Madison—hey, life is short—and naturally, she became his mistress for four years. Until something went sideways. Possibly Rosenkranz reneged on the deal after finding out that Ekatarina was a mail-order bride. She’s claiming Rosenkranz duped her into signing a deal to end their relationship and keep quiet about it in exchange for $100,000. That’s peanuts. Seriously? So, Ekatarina has lawyered up and sued.

The “she said/he said” thing goes something like: Petuhova has denied Rosenkranz’s claim that she tried to hold him up for $10 million. Rosenkranz sent a message to Ekatarina stating “I may have cheated on my wife, but you were a mail-order whore.” (New York Post). And he wasn’t whoring around?

Regardless of the amount, Rosenkranz has refused to pay Ekatarina—whom he compared to Glenn Close’s character in “Fatal Attraction,” according to court filings. Instead, he obtained an order of protection in Manhattan Family Court.

Last week, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Paul Wooten threw out most of Ekatarina’s claims against Rosenkranz. She now faces possible jail time for taunting Rosenkranz and his family through Twitter after a judge had barred her from contacting them.

Well, on the bright side, at least she’s got a roof over her head and three squares a day, maybe not ideal but it’s a retirement of sorts. Wonder what Shakespeare would have made of all this…

Oh—p.s.—Ekatarina told The NYP she eventually received a green card from a second ex-husband, whose name was not mentioned in the legal papers.

This was posted on Tuesday, August 25th, 2015 at 5:51 pm and is filed under Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.