At the hearing, even Donald's lawyer admitted "this is not about
people making a small amount of money." Indeed, despite her contractual
right to alimony, the millions Ivana netted in her divorce made her
countersuit against Donald for non-payment of alimony look almost
laughable. "I'm financially secure," she is quoted in countless articles
and talk-show interviews reprinted in a bulging sheaf of legal papers
Donald's lawyer toted to the hearing. "I don't need a man to pay my
bills. I need a man only for love, friendship, and companionship. I don't
want to be without a man in my life, but I don't need a man to take care
of me.'
A reminder of women's dependent status, the term "alimony,"
referring to the award of financial aid, is seldom used anymore in
divorce settlements. By contrast, "cohabit" is a relatively new term in
divorce-law lingo. It was meant to express the law's supposed acceptance
of changed lifestyles stemming from new sexual and social freedoms. For
example, the law no longer expects brides to be virgins.
But as lawyers for Ivana and Donald agree, the law is "not clear
and unambiguous" on cohabiting. It is understood by lawyers and laymen to
mean "living together," but until the hearing, I had not realized how
vaguely defined this widely practiced concept is in law-which, as one
lawyer reminded me, "is always at least 40 years behind the rest of
society."
Ivana and Donald's failure to specify in their settlement precisely
what they meant by cohabit-as in perhaps "to live together for a period
of at least six months"-makes the interpretation of cohabiting in their
case unusually problematic.
Worse yet, as Judge Phyllis Gangel-Jacob noted, the word is really
a misnomer in Trump v. Trump. Ivana and her alleged cohabitee, Riccardo
Mazzucchelli, have too many roofs between them to fit the basic common
sense and legal definition of habitually dwelling together under one
roof. "Both seem to be world travelers on a regular basis," the judge
said in a masterful understatement. "So it is unlikely they'd be under
the same roof."
Ivana's lawyer, Robert Stephen Cohen, accuses Donald of "trumping"
up the cohabiting charge to duck any further financial payments to Ivana,
and says she and Mazzucchelli have merely "dated" no more than five
times. But Ivana's own words are more ambiguous. She says she met the
48-year-old Mazzucchelli in London, a month or so after her divorce,
through a mutual friend who thought Ivana could be a "reference for
possible business contacts he was seeking in Eastern Europe.'
Since then, Ivana admits that almost everywhere she went,
Mazzucchelli, a "wealthy Italian divorcee" and "owner of a Zambia-based
construction firm;' was sure to go-though not always on the same day or
for as long.
In the next 10 months-in which Donald insists they were cohabiting,
but Ivana says they were merely "attempting to establish the parameters
of what has been only a periodic (dating) relationship"Mazzucchelli
escorted Ivana on foot or ski boot, in his Rolls or her Mercedes, by
Concorde or by yacht, to dinners, balls, charity events, the movies, ski
slopes, the opera, the theater, and to Ivana's book-signing parties
during her whirlwind, month-long promotion tour last spring.
During these outings, Mazzucchelli entertained Ivana, and she
Mazzucchelli-Donald says in her bedroom, Ivana says in her guest room or
guest quarters, often as one of her 10 or more house guests-in her
rent-free New York, Greenwich, and Florida homes; at her rented apartment
in London, her rented house in the South of France, her rented Swiss
chalet in Celerina; in Mazzucchelli's homes in Rome and Prague; in their
separate hotels in Prague, Venice, London, Aspen, and New York.
The lawyers disagreed on whether all this togetherness on the run
meant Ivana and Mazzucchelli were cohabiting. But I was amazed that at
the end of one of Mazzucchelli's days-far longer than the head nanny's
grinding 6:30 A.M. to 9:30 P.M. stint-he had the energy just to hold
himself upright, let alone hold himself out as a husband in all but name,
which is how, I learned, the law basically looks at cohabiting.
Along with these frequent travels, Donald and his lawyers cite
other "evidence" of Mazzucchelli's alleged cohabitation with Ivana. This
includes Mazzucchelli's occasional chauffeuring and chaperoning the Trump
children, flying them to Disney World, buying them gifts-including "some
kind of pet believed to be a turtle"cooking, and even raking leaves with
Ivana and the children at the Greenwich mansion-perhaps the only
non-Donald-financed activity left for Ivana to tackle.
As added proof of the alleged cohabiting, Donald's lawyer told the
judge at the hearing that Mazzucchelli has his own key to the Trump
triplex, enters unannounced without being logged in in the lobby, or
without ringing; gets his mail, and keeps "his clothes, perfumes, and
European vitamins" in the apartment, pays for Ivana's vacations and the
pasta he cooks for her and her family-in contrast to Ivana, who says, "I
don't cook in the Trump Tower apartment"-and generally treats Trump Tower
like it is his own."
He also claims that by having given her a 10-carat canary diamond
ring from Tiffany, Mazzucchelli is engaged to Ivana, and is "frequently
intimate" with her, and that along with their having been glimpsed
"hugging, kissing, and holding hands," Mazzuccheli has been seen on "many
occasions walking out of Ms. Trump's bedroom early in the morning wearing
nothing but a robe.'
Tags:
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