A Manhattan underwear heiress says her newlywed hubby conned her into raiding a trust fund with phony sob stories about mob gambling debts — only to lavish the six-figure payout on his New Jersey mistress.
Now wounded wife Candice Feinberg is seeking revenge on them both — to the tune of more than $10 million — in a stunning Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit.
The alleged two-timing cad, Steven Lalicata, 30, convinced his wealthy bride into withdrawing $744,000 from her trust fund to pay off his supposed gambling debts to mobsters, Feinberg says in her $10.7 million suit, but all the while he “was stealing the money to live a double life.”
Feinberg — then a recently divorce mother — met Mr. Wrong at the Beach Bum Tanning Salon in July 2010 and quickly fell for the tall, muscular smooth-talker.
The 39-year-old’s dad is retired garment industry executive Herbert Feinberg, who is himself something of a legend credited with inventing seamless panties.
Little did she know that her tanning salon beau was faking much more than his bronzed skin tone.
They married in 2011 and shortly after he said, “I do” Lalicata allegedly conspired with a cousin and a friend to concoct “an elaborate scheme to steal large sums of money” from Feinberg.
The pal, Brian Martinez, texted Feinberg, “His luck has run out I think I am getting disturbing messages from some people,” in November 2011, according to court papers.
“Not like we’re going to get killed candy girl. Lol,” Lalicata’s cousin allegedly wrote in a follow up text. “Just hate seeing these guys. We have to get this paid off.”
After Lalicata claimed that the Howard Beach gangsters were threatening to wack him, his wife dipped into her trust fund to bail him out.
The bum husband even dragged his wife to a Manhattan TD Bank where he stuffed $150,000 cash in a duffle bag.
He then arranged for an unknown man to pull up in a “large black sport utility vehicle” for the payoff, the suit says. The mystery “mobster” told the bamboozled bridge “You just bought your husband back.”
But the rich girl eventually got wise to the ruse and hired a private eye.
A retired NYPD detective nailed her hubby canoodling with Fernandez and Feinberg discovered the allegedly cheating duo had used the debt money for jaunts to Vegas, the Dominican Republic and gifts from Bloomingdales, Louis Vuitton and Cartier, court papers claim.
An employee at Feinberg and Lalicata’s former luxury E. 65th Street apartment building told The Post Lalicata was a “bad boy type” who rode a motorcycle and would return from shopping sprees with Louis Vuitton, Armani and Calvin Klein bags.
Lalicata allegedly implored the employee, “Hold these for me. Don’t tell my wife.”
Feinberg’s suit says she is seeking an annulment of her marriage to Lalicata, who moved in with his mother at her Astoria apartment.
She told The Post, “I am concerned that these people may pray on other victims. I believe that they brought me and my young son into their confidences solely from the get go to steal as much as they could from me.”
Earlier this month Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Anil Singh refused to let the alleged mistress, Englewood, NJ resident Diana Fernandez, out of the case.
Fernandez, 30, a Bank of America employee who allegedly boasted of Lalicata’s fellatio skills in a text to his wife, according to the suit,had pleaded ignorance about her boyfriend’s scheme to the judge.
But Judge Singh didn’t buy her story, finding that the facts of the case “are clearly sufficient” to show that Fernandez played a role in the elaborate ruse.
Oscar Holt, attorney Diana Fernandez, said his client and Lalicata were “just friends.”
“If any money was taken, she had nothing to do with it,” Holt added.
But in her suit, filed in June, Feinberg says she received a text from Fernandez that read, “Your husband is in my house right now…he sucks the habichuelas [beans] right out of my a–. Squeaky clean now…”
Lalicata, who has tried to evade service of the suit according to Feinberg, could not immediately be reached for comment.
His grandfather insisted he was “the perfect kid” even though he said he hasn’t been in touch since he moved out of the family’s Queens apartment last year.
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts, Reuven Fenton and Amber Sutherland