Al D’Amato’s estranged wife claims he dined with judge to try to win divorce case
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Katuria Smith says this picture shows Al D'Amato meeting with Judge Janet DiFiore at the Pershing Square restaurant in Manhattan on Oct. 19.Provided by Katuria Smith
Former Sen. Al D’Amato’s estranged wife claims he tried to “fix” their divorce case by dining with the state’s chief judge — and she’s got the photo to prove it.
The ex-pol huddled with Judge Janet DiFiore over a two-top at the Pershing Square restaurant in Manhattan on Oct. 19.
“My husband bragged to me and others that he used his influence with Gov. Cuomo and his since indicted Chief of Staff, Mr. Joseph Percoco, to put Janet DiFiore on the bench,” D’Amato ex Katuria Smith alleges.
“He said that she owes him. In his mind it’s time for her to pay back by helping him to win his divorce and custody case,” Smith claimed.
She filed for divorce from her husband of 14 years last October. He then sued her for custody of their two young children.
She released the Pershing Square photo to the press Monday — just days after a different judge overseeing her Nassau County Supreme Court case removed her lawyer for trying to improperly influence the former couple’s kids.
D’Amato’s attorney, Stephen Gassman, called the allegations “unfounded and scandalous.”
He said D’Amato and DiFiore are “old friends who met for breakfast and talked about old times.”
They did not discuss the pending divorce case, Gassman said.
A spokesman for Judge DiFiore added, “The chief judge and Al D’Amato have been personal friends going back a quarter century to when he was a senator from New York. Their relationship has nothing to do with the chief judge’s current position and to suggest that she insinuated herself in a pending matter on behalf of a friend is both outrageous and completely false.”
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