Lawsuit of the Day, Real Estate, Romance and Dating, Violence

Lawsuit of the Day: Hand Model Sues Meanies on Co-Op Board

By  
on

Yesterday I had the quintessential New York City moment. At the bodega around the corner from Breaking Media’s lavish Nolita office, the bodega’s proprietor engaged me and two other people in a conversation involving three languages. I was speaking English, another guy was speaking Spanish, and I believe the third woman was speaking Portuguese, and the bodega owner was talking to all of us and translating where necessary.
I love this town!
I would have loved this conversation if we had been talking about dog poop. But instead the four of us were talking about a lawsuit that New Yorkers have been buzzing about all day. The cover story in yesterday’s Daily News involves a pretty lady (pictured) suing her co-op board:

Christina Ambers, once dubbed the “Heidi Klum of foot models,” says a romance with her porter-turned-husband, Angel Rotger, turned her into a pariah among workers at 340 E. 74th St., who made her hail taxis and retrieve packages on her own.
“I hope that people can understand how awful it is to come home and to then be treated with hostility in a building where I have paid a lot of money to live,” Ambers told the Daily News. “Nobody should have to live this way.”

Oh, to live on the Upper East Side — as I do — is to know the true definition of pettiness.
At the bodega, I made the mistake of telling my interlocutors that I “write a legal blog.” At that point, the bodega owner, the construction worker who speaks Spanish, and the Brazilian nanny had all kinds of legal questions.
Details about the suit and the street-level reaction, after the jump.


It doesn’t strike me as all that unusual for an extremities model to marry a doorman. They both know how hard it is to make a living with their hands and feet:

The brown-haired beauty, whose hands and feet have starred in ad campaigns for Maybelline, Harry Winston and the TV show “Rescue Me,” married Rotger in July after he swept her off her feet in 2007 while he was working at the building.
“The people in this building need to come into the 21st century,” Ambers said. “I fell in love with Angel because he is a sweet, caring man — how dare they look down on us!”

I wish Laurie was here to comment. She has previously written about New Yorkers marrying the building staff.
In lieu of LEWW, my new Brazilian nanny friend offered: “Pretty young lady marries a doorman. She can’t do better? She’s probably [not right] in the head.” But I think she used a Brazilian curse word to emphasize her point that I didn’t catch.
But my construction worker friend was drawn to this allegation by Ambers:

The $10 million suit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, accuses the super’s wife — identified by building residents as Kristin Purcell — of boozily slugging Rotger in the groin.

“He made his way to the hospital and was diagnosed with a contusion,” Ambers said. “Can you imagine how hard she must have hit him to have caused a contusion?”

Sponsored

The construction worker said: “I would have done [something unpleasant] to any woman who hit me in the [groin].” Then looking at me, he added in English “Legal, right?”
I shook my head and the bodega owner jumped in: “It’s not legal to defend yourself against a woman hitting you in the … cojones?” Then the two men laughed and exchanged a bunch of words in Spanish that didn’t get translated for my benefit. I think they were laughing because Spanish-speaking people don’t actually use the word “cojones” to say testicles, but they were trying to say something a dumb Gringo like me would understand.
I tried to explain that while it was certainly legal to defend yourself, you couldn’t use being hit in the nuts to justify every physical counterattack, so it really depended on what “unpleasant” thing the construction worker said he would do. But by that point the nanny was done stuffing some sort of candy into the mouth of her charge.
According to the owner, the nanny said: “I hit you there and you hit me anywhere, I hit you there again.” Mental note: do not mess with Brazilian nannies.
We talked a little more about how to handle a drunk lady threatening your nuts with a pocketbook. But the conversation ended when the construction worker summed up everybody’s feeling about the case: “I hope [the model] wins. The people who live in those co-ops are assholes.” Then he turned to me and said, in English: “Ya know, assholes. Assholes, right?”
Yep, this is my city.
Hand model Christina Ambers sues building for $10M over alleged mistreatment since she wed doorman [Daily News]

Sponsored

Topics