A Manhattan fashion designer claims her bigshot lawyer ex duped her into thinking they were legally married and now wants to boot her from their chic Tribeca apartment.
Nolita boutique owner Anya Ponorovskaya and civil-rights lawyer Wylie Stecklow — whose firm scored half of a recent $583,000 Occupy Wall Street settlement — held a lavish Mexico wedding with 100 guests in 2010.
A few months later, the couple purchased the $1 million pad, with Ponorovskaya paying part of the mortgage and handling extensive renovations, she told The Post.
Stecklow told her at the time that she didn’t have to put her name on the deed because they were legally married, she claimed.
But when Ponorovskaya, 44, filed for divorce in 2013, she was stunned to learn that their beachfront nuptials had been a sham — and that her interest in the property was therefore in jeopardy.
“He tricked me into removing my name [from the deed]. He said we’re married [and] it doesn’t matter,” she said.
“I spent years renovating and almost drowned my own business. With the amount of physical labor I put into this loft, it would make me a slave to just walk away.”
Stecklow, 48, is now trying to evict her from the luxury two-bedroom home they still share even though they no longer speak, in a “War of the Roses”-style standoff.
“He’s very, very greedy,” Ponorovskaya said, adding that the value of the loft has crept toward $2 million.
Ponorovskaya’s lawyer, Rita Warner, argued in court last month that a marriage is official if sufficiently solemnized, according to a 107-year-old law. Stecklow’s cousin, a dentist and an Internet-ordained minister, officiated at the Jewish-style ceremony complete with a “chuppah” canopy and the groom’s ceremonial breaking of a glass.
But a Manhattan judge ruled that the beachfront extravaganza wasn’t legally binding because the couple never got a basic marriage license, and called the law an “anachronism.”
“[The law] would undoubtedly come as a surprise to all those couples who patiently wait on the long lines at the Marriage License Bureau . . . to learn that, despite the instructions they were given, a marriage license is not really a requirement for marrying after all,” he wrote.
Struggling to save her claim to the apartment, the blue-eyed redhead is now arguing that Stecklow cruelly deceived her with the marriage claims and that she should be entitled to her share of the property.
“He used influence over me to try to gain a Tribeca apartment that is skyrocketing in value by the day,” said the owner of two high-end boutiques in New York and one in Miami.
A comparable apartment in the Chambers Street building recently sold for over $1.7 million — almost $200,000 above the asking price, according to a broker.
Stecklow’s lawyer, Dave Thompson, said, “In the absence of a marriage, the courts generally do not, and should not, [get] involved in the parties’ private affairs.”
Ponorovskaya blames her overwhelming home improvement project for the breakdown of her more than 10-year relationship.
“The renovations put a strain on us,” she explained. “It was an empty space I built into a loft and it was a lot of pressure on us.”