A Cadwalader Partner, His Deaf Daughter, and His Playboy Bunny Ex-Fiancée
Ira Schacter is back in the news. He's accused of refusing to pay for his teen daughter's $12,000 hearing aids, while dropping $215,000 on a diamond engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny fiancée. If true, that's pretty shoddy behavior -- the very embodiment of cheapness, from a big-time Biglaw partner who can easily afford twelve grand....
Some people just can’t stay out of our pages. Back in 2008, we wrote about Ira J. Schacter, a prominent corporate partner and major rainmaker at Cadwalader. Schacter earned Lawyer of the Day honors after he was accused of beating his wife. (He claimed he acted in self-defense and was ultimately cleared of the charges.)
Well, today Ira Schacter is back in the news. He’s accused of refusing to pay for his teen daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids, while dropping $215,000 on a diamond engagement ring for his Playboy-bunny fiancée. If true, that’s pretty shoddy behavior — the very embodiment of cheapness, from a big-time Biglaw partner who can easily afford twelve grand.
But I know what you’re all wondering right now: “How hot is that Playboy-model fiancée?”
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Here’s the story, from the New York Post:
This guy must be tone deaf.
A prominent Manhattan lawyer at a white-shoe firm bought his Playboy-bunny fiancée a $215,000 diamond engagement ring — but refuses to pay for his teenage daughter’s $12,000 hearing aids, The Post has learned.
Ira Schacter, 51, who works for the powerhouse firm of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, is stuck in a vicious divorce battle with his estranged wife, Janice, 48.
The scorned wife says that while Schacter was lavishing his bombshell fiancée, Lace Rose Allenius, 26, with bling, he was ignoring a 2010 court order that gives Janice Schacter “legal decision-making” for the “physical auditory care to the extent provided by a doctor, audiologist or hearing-aids provider.”
Janice Schacter is incredulous. “I don’t understand how a father can give a $215,000 ring to a Playboy girl and then deny his daughter’s hearing aids,” she told the Post. “Maybe someone can explain it to me.”
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Sure! Two words: PLAYBOY. MODEL. Or maybe one word: BOOBS. Hope this helps, Janice.
In a statement, Ira Schacter said, “I love my daughter dearly, and her medical condition and her needs are of paramount importance to me.” And his lawyer also had some words in his defense:
While admitting his client has refused to pay the hearing-aid bill, Ira Schacter’s lawyer, Ashish Joshi, insists that Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laura E. Drager has said he is not responsible for expenses unless he gives prior approval….
“Mr. Schacter has said to the court, ‘I’m not a checkbook; I’m not an ATM; I’m a father.’ He has to be consulted in advance,” Joshi said.
Schacter might not be an ATM, but he’s doing a pretty good job of impersonating one, if claims by his attorney are true. According to Joshi, Ira pays Janice a whopping $60,000 a month, to maintain her and their two children in a $3.2 million townhouse on the Upper East Side.
(Being a Biglaw partner’s ex-wife: nice work if you can get it. In some cases, it’s like winning the lottery.)
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So can former Playboy model Lace Rose Allenius look forward to a windfall of her own someday, after a lucrative divorce from Ira Schacter? Alas, no.
It seems that the young hottie, named a Playboy “co-ed of the week” back in 2004, broke off the engagement two months ago. Schacter will no longer have access to Lace’s curtains.
But there are no hard feelings. Allenius told the NYP that she and Ira remain friends and that she “wish[es] all the best for the entire Schacter family.”
Allenius, who has a three-year-old daughter of her own, works as a florist in Manhattan. Making ends meet in NYC on a florist’s salary might sound tough. Too bad she didn’t keep the 8.5-carat (!!!) engagement ring that Schacter bought for her.
But don’t worry too much about Lace Rose — she’s still in full bloom, and should find a new guy soon. Before her engagement to Schacter, she dated Matt Dillon for two years.
Matt Dillon? As in, the rich and famous actor who also happens to be hot? Well, Dillon surely doesn’t have Schacter’s skill in “creating and structuring complex financial solutions and the formation, acquisition, and capital raising activities of businesses that issue, underwrite, trade, or invest in financial products.”
So how did Ira Schacter win the heart of Lace Rose Allenius? Here’s a possible hint, from the New York Daily News (which gives props to Allenius for her “rather magnificent name”):
The former Florida State University student was 19 when she posed for Playboy’s “Girls of the ACC” in 2004. She told playboy.com at the time: “I like patience, loyalty, a man who can laugh with me, breakfast in bed, and furry handcuffs.”
I don’t want to imagine Ira Schacter in furry handcuffs. Other than that, I have no concerns.
(Photographs of Lace Rose Allenius, tastefully redacted to remove nudity, appear on subsequent pages. If you do not wish to see these pictures, or if you are not in a place where viewing such photos (even in redacted form) would be appropriate, please stop reading here. Thank you.)
