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Woman who dumped boyfriend can keep $10K ‘engagement’ ring: judge

If you like it, fellas, you should put a ring on it — but remember to actually pop the question first.

A judge has ruled a Long Island woman who broke up with her boyfriend can keep a $10,200 “engagement” ring because her paramour didn’t make a marriage proposal when he handed over the pricey gift.

Unlucky loverboy Joseph Robert Torres, of Yonkers, went to court to snatch back the ring from former gal pal Debbie Lopez, citing a law that lets men retrieve their engagement rings if their wedding plans go bust.

He claimed he proposed to the Valley Stream brunette in an emotional April 2010 moment at Rockefeller Center, when he had the couple’s 6-year-old son hand her the ring.

Lopez, 48, wore it on her left ring finger and even told friends “Maybe, I don’t know yet,” when asked if she was engaged, according to court records.

But after the couple split in 2012, Lopez refused to give up her pricey hardware without a fight. She claimed she didn’t have to surrender the ring because Torres, 52, didn’t actually propose marriage when he gave it to her.

The ring given to Debbie Lopez by her ex-boyfriend. A judge said she could keep it since it was not given in a wedding proposal.VICTORALCORN.COM

“When he gave it to me, he said it was a gift for being a great woman, a good mother of his child,” Lopez told The Post.

The case went before Nassau County Judge Scott Fairgrieve, who ruled that Lopez was not bound by the law requiring women to return engagement rings because it was “given as a gift and not in contemplation of marriage,” according to an Oct. 14 ruling.

Torres’ White Plains-based attorney, Jasmine Hernandez, said her client was “stunned and disappointed” by the ruling because he thought he was getting engaged.

“He asked [her] to marry him, and the defendant said absolutely,” Hernandez stated in court papers.

Lopez said she was also surprised that her son’s father fought so hard for the ring. “Our relationship didn’t work out, [and] he decided to sue me for the ring,” she said. “I’m like, I don’t understand this, the whole idea was I didn’t want to bother with the ring.”