The Yiddisher Momma from Hell

April 19, 2010 at 8:50 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

This really happened

A WOMAN was so convinced her son’s fiancee was a no-good gold digger that she did everything she could to break the couple up, even harassing the fiancee’s ailing father in Ohio and trying to get her fired from her job.

The New York Post reported Lia Joseph, 61, was enraged when her real-estate-developer son Denis, 34, and his betrothed, Diana David, 28, tied the knot last October anyway – without the prenuptial agreement Lia had demanded.

In response, Lia allegedly did what she could to make sure her son had no money for his bride to take, and went on a campaign to ruin her son’s business interests in Brooklyn and Connecticut, Denis claims.

“It seems to be some sort of twisted Freudian thing,” a source close to the family said.

After Denis’ mother filed two lawsuits against him claiming to be the owner of his property, Denis had enough: He filed his own suit against Lia last week in Manhattan Supreme Court, accusing her of going on a “terroristic binge.”

“Fresh from a 9.5-year divorce case from Denis Joseph’s father, Lia Joseph turned her full maniacal rage against her son, his fiancee and (Diana’s) family,” he claims in court papers.

Lia repeatedly called Diana’s office at the finance firm TriOptima, asking for references so it seemed like Diana was looking for another job, the lawsuit alleges.

At Passover dinner last year, she threatened to sue Diana’s family, and just days before the wedding she called Diana’s father, who needed heart-bypass surgery, to tell him his daughter was a gold digger, Denis claims.

In an email sent to Diana, Lia blasted the young woman as “self-centered and truly dangerous” and warned her she had no rights to “our family properties” – a six-bedroom, eight-bathroom mansion in Greenwich and a property in Brooklyn that Denis leased to a car wash.

“HE IS NOT YOUR PROPERTY,” Lia wrote about her son.

“In her twisted mind, Ms Joseph viewed the Greenwich property and the Brooklyn property as ‘family’ property, even though there is no dispute that Denis Joseph is the sole owner,” Denis wrote in court papers.

Lia wasn’t invited to the wedding, and the day after her son got hitched, she filed a lawsuit in Connecticut, claiming she was a co-owner of the Greenwich property, but has postponed the case each time the court asked her to prove the claim, her son said in his lawsuit.

In December, she filed suit in Brooklyn Supreme Court seeking to divide the property in Brooklyn . Then she called the owner of the car wash, told him she was the real landlord, and convinced him to stop paying rent, Denis claims.

Lia also allegedly talked trash about Diana to her dad.

“She called me a number of times, directly at work, spending an hour or more on the phone with me and saying all kinds of things that were very disconcerting,” Frank David told The Post.

Lia claimed “that Diana was a gold digger and that she was influencing Denis in a nasty way, none of which is the situation,” Frank said. “We know Diana, and we know what kind of person she is.”

Diana, a Stony Brook University graduate who earned a 3.9 GPA, was awarded the prestigious Churchill Scholarship from the University of Cambridge in 2004 along with other academic honors, her father said. “It’s inconceivable to us,” he said of Lia’s claims.

Original story here

THE NEWS

Cat stranded up a tree for 7 days… because British fire brigade’s ladder was too short: “A frightened cat spent seven days stuck 100ft up a giant redwood tree – because the fire brigade’s ladder was too short to reach her, it emerged yesterday…. They called in the firebrigade and the RSPCA, but the 45ft ladder on the engine was still over 50ft short of reaching her in the tree. After another two days trying to tempt her down, Natasha and Chloe were advised by the RSPCA to call in specialist tree surgeons. They sent an employee to clamber up the tree using ropes and pulleys and rescued Tiggs in less than 15 minutes” [So if you are in a tall building that catches fire, call a tree surgeon, not the fire brigade!]

Men with monotonous voices are irresistible, scientists say: “Monotonous voices are associated with strength, power and confidence, researchers said. The study at universities in California and Pennysylvania, US, found that men with a steady tone of voice had a significantly higher number of sexual partners than their more expressive counterparts. Researchers measured the voices of male volunteers in various situations, including a simulated dating game, and analysed the results. The amount their vocal pitch changed – known as fundamental frequency variation – was found to be directly linked to the number of sexual partners the men had in the past year. Experts believe that the monotone has evolved as an indication of authority and independence. They cited George Clooney and Clint Eastwood as examples of men who have nonotone voice but are considered sexy.”

NY: George Washington racking up library late fees: “Librarians in New York’s oldest library have uncovered a surprising book thief: George Washington. The first president of the United States of America borrowed two books from the New York Society Library in 1789 but failed to return them. Adjusted for inflation, he has since racked up $300,000 (£195,000) in fines for being some 220 years late. The New York Society Library says it will not pursue the fine. It would simply like the books back. … On 5 October 1789, the first president borrowed two books from what was then the only library in Manhattan: Law of Nations, a dissertation on international relations, and a volume of debate transcripts from Britain’s House of Commons. George Washington did not even bother to sign his name in the borrower’s ledger. An aide simply scrawled ‘president’ next to the title to show who had taken them out.”

Australia: Cookbook recalled for … umm, bad editing?: “It is a tiny misprint, but an Australian publisher had to pulp a cookbook after one recipe called for ’salt and freshly ground black people’ to be added to the dish, AFP reported Saturday. Penguin Group Australia pulped and reprinted about 7,000 copies of ‘Pasta Bible’ after the typographical error was found in the ingredients for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto, The Sydney Morning Herald reported. ‘We’re mortified that this has become an issue of any kind, and why anyone would be offended, we don’t know,’ head of publishing Bob Sessions was quoted as saying. Penguin said almost every one of the more than 150 recipes in the book called for salt and freshly ground black pepper but a misprint occurred on just one page, probably as a result of a computer’s spellchecker program.”

Traveling tabby gets free trip home: “No one knows how a tabby cat named Charles traveled the 1,300 miles from his New Mexico home to Chicago, but he’s set for a complimentary flight home on American Airlines in a carrier donated by an Albuquerque business. Charles disappeared about eight months ago while his owner was out of town and a friend was caring for him. … Then last week, Alex received a call telling her Chicago Animal Care and Control had picked up her wandering cat as a stray. Staffers reached out to Alex after finding that Charles had a tracking microchip embedded between his shoulder blades, said the agency’s executive director, Cherie Travis. But Alex said she could not afford the round-trip ticket to Chicago to bring Charles home, so she was afraid he might be euthanized. Enter fellow Albuquerque resident Lucien Sims. … Sims was on his way to Chicago on Thursday for a wedding, so he said he would go to the shelter, pick up Charles and bring him back to New Mexico.”

And don’t forget to catch up with all the Strange Justice before you go.