A Manhattan judge ruled Tuesday that Yankee GM Brian Cashman’s former mistress can’t use a bizarre battered woman syndrome defense at her upcoming housing-fraud trial.
Kooky Louise Neathway, 37, lied in an application to score below-market rent on her TriBeCa pad by claiming that she had sole custody of her daughter and that her ex-husband lived in England. Her ex, Jason Bump, actually has sole custody of their 15-year-old and lives in upstate New York.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Daniel Conviser wrote in his decision that Neathway’s fear of her ex isn’t legal justification for committing fraud.
The decision means that expert witness Dr. Lenore Walker — who coined the term Battered Woman Syndrome – won’t take the stand.
Walker diagnosed Neathway with the condition and has testified at the trials of OJ Simpson and “Milkshake Murderer” Nancy Kissel.
In Walker’s sympathetic report, she details the horrific abuse Neathway claims to have suffered at the hands of her ex before they divorced in 1998.
Bump shoved Neathway’s head into a toilet and flushed it, threw her down stairs, threw metal clothing racks on her, spit at her and slapped her, according to the report.
Walker argues that Neathway only lied on the housing application because she didn’t want Bump to know where she lived. The psychologist doesn’t explain why Neathway lied about having custody of her child – the only reason she qualified for nearly $50,000 in breaks on the luxury Leonard Street one bedroom, according to court papers.
“Dr. Walker asserts that ‘battered women often manipulate and do not tell the truth, in order to protect themselves from danger,” Conviser writes. “But such motivations do not provide a defense under New York law for the crimes of Larceny, Falsifying Business Recors or Offering a False Instrument for Filing.”
Neathway’s defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew didn’t immediately return requests for comment.