The deadbeat husband of a Manhattan underwear heiress suddenly surfaced after failing to show up for court– and is asking a judge to toss the $10 million lawsuit his wife brought against him for looting her trust fund.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Anil Singh granted Candice Feinberg Lalicata a legal victory earlier this month after her estranged hubby Steven Lalicata, 30, never bothered to answer her claims that he lavished the dough on a mistress.
Steven, a former tanning salon employee, finally lawyered up on Valentine’s Day and filed papers in court Wednesday, blaming his spouse for forking over her fortune.
In her suit Candice, 39, daughter of retired garment-industry executive Herbert Feinberg, said Steven conned her into giving him bags of cash to pay off Brooklyn gangsters who were threatening to whack him over gambling debts.
The previously divorced mom says she discovered the story was a tall-tale and Steven was actually jetting off to Vegas and the Dominican Republic with a New Jersey girlfriend.
But eight months after his wife filed her suit to get back $744,000 plus millions in damages for the two-timing scheme, Steven has finally come forward to deny the fraud.
Candice “was aware of the gambling problem from the very beginning,” Steven claims in court papers. “There was no conspiracy to defraud [her.]”
He says he actually used the money to clear the debts.
His attorney, Alan Levin, goes on to blame Candice for exercising “bad judgment” when she handed over the cash to Steven.
“This situation is clearly an irretrievably broken relationship that should be resolved” with a divorce judge, Levin says.