WTF? no no-fault divorce in NY?

Sentenced till death!

Warring couple wanted split, but jury sez no go

BY NANCIE L. KATZ, JOTHAM SEDERSTROM and BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Posted Thursday, March 29th 2007, 4:00 AM

Simon Taub beams after jury said his wife, Chana (below), can't divorce him - which may seem a strange reaction, considering the couple's warring ways.

Their love may have died, their house may be divided, but New York's most notorious battling couple is going to have to stay married - by decision of the jury.

In a divorce battle that has gotten more and more bizarre, Chana Taub asked a Brooklyn Supreme Court panel to dissolve her 21-year marriage to Simon Taub. Both listened in stunned silence Tuesday as the jury said they could not separate.

The squabbling spouses each immediately claimed the other was going to resort to murder to do what the court did not - end their wedlock.

"I'm scared. She could be hiring a hit man," said Simon Taub, 58, a millionaire sweater mogul.

"I'm very scared," said Chana Taub, 57. "He's told people he's going to get rid of me."

But in keeping them married, the six-member jury rejected Chana's stated grounds for divorce, that Simon had subjected her to "cruel and inhuman treatment."

The wacky case began two years ago, when Chana said she wanted out of the marriage and Simon refused.

Although most divorce cases are decided by judges, Chana Taub sought a jury trial because she said she thought she would get a fairer hearing.

The real-life "War of the Roses" got so nasty Simon Taub built a wall dividing the Hasidic Jewish couple's Borough Park brownstone to keep them apart.

During the 10-day trial, Chana Taub testified that she needed more than a wall to protect her against his abusive streak. She said he has attacked her with everything from a telephone to a treadmill during their hellish 21-year marriage. Their four children testified against him.

Tuesday's astonishing jury decision came after just five hours of deliberations, leaving the warring couple speechless, albeit temporarily.

Before the verdict sank in, Justice Carolyn Demarest pounded her gavel, saying, "I'm dismissing the whole case. That's it."

"I was in total shock. It's unbelievable," said Chana Taub. "I didn't think I was hearing right."

She said that moments before the panel revealed its decision, her lawyer was so confident she told her to get ready to thank the jury.

Simon Taub said he was convinced the jury would decide against him.

"There is a God. God is great," he said.

"I was willing to do this without the jury, just the judge, but she didn't trust the judge. But now she knows, I was the best husband. Every juror had the right to vote separate and she couldn't convince just one of them."

Simon Taub's lawyer Abe Konstam called the case, "a colossal waste of judicial time."

He said the divorce would have easily been settled if New York allowed married couples to split based on irreconcilable differences, like most states.

But Konstam said Chana Taub helped him "pull a rabbit out of his hat" by "concocting such vicious and outrageous grounds that nobody believed her."

Yesterday, Chana Taub made a new allegation that her husband punched her in the eye when they returned to their divided house after the jury's decision Tuesday evening.

"He was yelling, 'I'm going to break down the wall. I'm going to get rid of her. I'm going to get the whole house,'" said Chana Taub, sporting a bloodshot right eye.

She claimed her husband got rough when she tried to serve him with a new restraining order.

But Simon Taub denied the fresh allegations of abuse, insisting they were a continuation of a smear campaign his wife began during the trial.

"I never hurt a fly in my life," he said. "I never hit her. I never touched her."

He raced to Brooklyn Family Court yesterday to get his own order of protection - while his wife was in the same courthouse trying to get a judge to look at her shiner.

But yesterday, Simon Taub said he was ready to "negotiate" and that the lawyers should work it out.

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